workshops
I'm Darren Yorke 👋 I'm from Longford. I'm a creator-performer making award-winning theatre for young audiences and facilitating Impro theatre as the playmaker behind Grand Stretch.
In 2014, fresh out of Trinity College Dublin with a BA in Drama & Theatre Studies, fierce notions, and no sense of direction, I took a risk and followed my now-husband Dave to Vancouver. Happening upon TheatreSports™ at The Improv Centre, I found a home away from home—training and performing with the team as their Education and Outreach Coordinator until 2016. Then, I wouldn't say it became my life, but I came to appreciate life through this practice.
I set up Grand Stretch in 2017. Rooted in Keith Johnstone's Impro and developed with inspiring artists around the world, my work with Grand Stretch has been shaped by my own curiosities and cross-disciplinary discoveries. Distilled into a philosophy, of sorts, I facilitate "play-making" in Playing Fields and Making Senses—counterbalancing acts of spirited play and artful making.
Impro Workshops for Spirited Players
playing fields
'Work and play are words used to describe the same thing under differing conditions,' wrote Mark Twain.
In six spontaneous workshops, we'll down tools, break the rules, and make a game of it in Playing Fields of the mind, heart, body, and soul. It's never too late in the day to be carried away in the spirit of play!
Impro Workshops for Artful Makers
making senses
We perceive and interact with the world through our senses, but the famous five only get us so far. Beyond what we see, hear, taste, smell, and touch, there's so much to life, from a maker's vantage point.
In six expansive workshops, we'll bring Making Senses into play—tuning into what's at play in life, along the way.
.png/:/cr=t:6.21%25,l:0%25,w:100%25,h:80.81%25/rs=w:1209,h:549,cg:true)