Carnets de scène — the Wednesday theatre workshop⭣

Each child comes once a week, to the group for their age. The three groups run one after another on Wednesday afternoon — the one half-day Swiss primary schools leave free.

• Time — Ages — Length — Places
• 1.30 - 2.30pm — 6-7 — 1 hour — 10 children
• 2.40 - 3.55pm — 8-9 — 1¼ hours — 10 children
• 4.05 - 5.35pm — 10-11 — 1½ hours — 10 children

Sessions grow longer with age. An hour is what a six-year-old can hold on their feet while genuinely playing. At eleven, an hour and a half is long enough to get through a whole scene, take it back and work it again — which an hour is not.

Thirty places in all, ten per group: that's what lets every child play in every session.

Pre-register my child

Long before a child says a line, they can already tell you something. A walk, a posture, a look, a silence — and somebody appears. That living material is where we start, and it's what we use to invent characters, meet the others and build stories.

In the room, that means exploring different ways of walking, of looking, of entering and occupying a space. Finding out what changes when you slow down, when you stop, when you start again. Discovering that a slight tilt of the back or a hand that hesitates is enough to make somebody else appear. And learning the hardest thing in theatre: listening to the person opposite you, and really answering them.

Carnets de scène is a real theatre workshop, from the very first session.

Each week the children take one element of playing and put it to the test in a scene straight away. No endless warm-up, no theory: up on your feet, try it, look at what it produced, do it again differently.

• The body: the walk, the weight, the rhythm, the way you take up space. What can be read before anyone has spoken.
• The voice: who you're speaking to, how loud, in what colour — and silence, which isn't an absence of playing but a moment of it.
• The text: a few words or a whole scene, always treated as material to try, never as a lesson to recite.

The three answer each other: a move changes a line, a line calls for a gesture, a silence transforms the whole scene.

A mask is not a costume. When the face becomes less available, everything else starts speaking: the shoulders, the speed of a step, the way a hand holds an object. The children find out that an attitude alone can make a character exist, and that their bodies say far more than they thought.

We use it as a tool for exploring, in short sequences, pitched to their age.

Where our teaching comes from

Our thinking draws on the work of the French director Antoine Vitez and of the director and designer Macha Makeïeff, and on our own exploration of Noh theatre and mask work. These are influences, not a method and not an affiliation: we teach no certified technique and claim no label.

For you as a parent, they show up as very concrete things: attention to presence, precision in gesture, a taste for rhythm and for silence, and the idea that movement and speech are built together rather than one after the other.

Texts are material for playing. With the older children they become somewhere to search: you go through them, you question them, and you find the different scenes they can produce.

The younger groups: text as a starting point

A few words, a short exchange, a rhyme, a story told aloud or a situation set up in a sentence. The text launches the action, opens the imagination, brings two children into contact. They learn it by playing it rather than by reciting it: what holds it in memory is the situation, and what the character wants. Improvisation and the children's own ideas take up a lot of room.

The older groups: text as somewhere to search

The children start to ask what a character wants, who they're speaking to and why, how an intention completely changes a line, what a silence or a move does to a scene, and how several readings of the same scene can all stand up without one of them being the right one.

Learning the lines belongs inside the playing and inside understanding the situation: you remember better what you have understood on your feet. Here too, it's often the children's own suggestions that open the scene.

Every session teaches one thing and uses it straight away. At Carnets de terrain the children learn line or light and go looking for it in what's in front of them. Here they take one element of playing — a walk, a silence, a way of addressing someone — and put it on its feet in a scene the same day.

• 1 hour — 1½ hours
• Arriving, becoming available — 10 min — 15 min — Bags down, into a circle. Waking up the body and the breath, a game of attention to step into the playing space.
• The material of the day — 15 min — 20 min — One thing at a time: a way of walking, a rhythm, an address, a mask. We explore it together, we try, we get it wrong, we try it another way.
• Putting it into a scene — 25 min — 40 min — The material becomes a situation to play — alone, in pairs or in small groups. Nothing to copy: the scene comes out of what the children propose. The others watch, then take their turn.
• What we found — 10 min — 15 min — We name what worked, what surprised us, what we'll try next week. Back to calm before heading home.

The shape doesn't change with age — what grows is the playing time. Twenty-five minutes of scene work for the youngest, forty for the oldest, with the 8-9 group at an hour and a quarter in between. That's where the real work happens, and it's exactly what the extra half-hour buys.

This is a typical session, not a fixed one: they shift with the group and with the time of year. Some weeks the scene takes everything; others, the material of the day deserves the time.

At the first session every child receives their stage notebook. It isn't decorative: it's a working tool, the same one actors use.

They write and draw what they're looking for in it. How their character walks. What they want, who they're talking to. Where everyone stood in a scene that worked. A mask they tried. A line that changed meaning when they said it differently.

Week after week the notebook fills up: attempts, failures, discoveries.

By June it holds a whole year of characters — and it lets a child pick up, one week to the next, what they'd found the time before.

Most children's theatre classes are built around an end-of-year show: from January onwards, the same play gets rehearsed, everyone holds their place and waits their turn.

That's not our choice. Every session is a full session of work: the children explore one piece of material and put it on its feet the same day. Each child acts every week — not three lines on the night of the performance.

What's left in June isn't a video of a show. It's a child who knows how to stand in front of others, listen, and take a risk.

Ten children maximum per group. That's what lets every child take a turn, try things and be properly watched during the session: beyond that, some spend more time waiting than playing.

The groups are split by age — 6-7, 8-9, 10-11 — because you aren't looking for the same thing at six as at eleven.

Staff training and our child protection measures are the same across all our workshops — they're set out here.

Loïc Berger-Jalil, founder of Hey Folks.

Trained as an actor at the Cours Florent in Paris, one of France's best-known drama schools.

As a director, he has staged Gogol's The Government Inspector, White Nights after Dostoevsky, and Les Petits Moyens, a one-act comedy by Eugène Labiche. As an actor, he has appeared in Erdman's The Suicide and Wedekind's Spring Awakening. His work has brought him alongside Axel Auriant-Blot, Fleur Fitoussi, Baptiste Bordet and Benjamin Sulpice.

He now runs Hey Folks, designing and leading camps and workshops for children around Lausanne.

What that brings to the workshop

Directing actors means looking very precisely at what is happening on a stage: what's alive, what's gone out, what deserves another go. With children, that becomes attention to each one's playing, a real welcome for what they propose, and simple instructions that open things up rather than close them down.

Gogol, Labiche, Erdman: a good part of that repertoire is comedy, and comedy forgives nothing. It's played in the body, in the rhythm, in the precision of a silence held a second too long or too short. That is the material of this workshop, at a child's height.

The training at the Cours Florent is part of a career: this workshop is neither a branch of that school nor a partner of it. The actors named are reference points in the teacher's professional path; they do not take part in the workshops.

1. Now: pre-register your child in the group for their age. It's free and commits you to nothing.
2. March 2027: registration opens, pre-registered families first. Registering involves no payment.
3. Between 15 and 30 June 2027: your child's place is confirmed by email, with payment details.
4. Wednesday 8 September 2027: first session, and the stage notebook.

Ten places per group. If your child’s group is full, we can discuss options suited to their age and the places available.

• When: every Wednesday afternoon, during Vaud school term time
• Length: one session a week, 1 to 1½ hours by age, September 2027 to June 2028
• First session: Wednesday 8 September 2027
• For: children aged 6 to 11, in three groups: 6-7, 8-9 and 10-11
• Group: 10 children maximum
• Where: Avenue de la Gare 40, 1003 Lausanne, two minutes from the station
• Registration: opens March 2027, pre-registered families first

CHF 80 a month, September to June (10 instalments), whichever group. CHF 120 registration fee, once a year — the same as our other workshops.

The price includes:

• teaching by a theatre-trained practitioner;
• the stage notebook given out at the first session;
• the year's playing materials: masks, props, texts;

Paid in 10 monthly instalments, by invoice. The first payment (first instalment plus registration fee) is due before the first session; after that, each instalment is settled at the end of the month for the month ahead. Annual payment also possible. Nothing is due before places are confirmed in June.

1. Which language is the workshop taught in? In French — and the teacher is bilingual French/English. A child still finding their French is genuinely welcome: an instruction can be given again in English when it helps, and in this workshop a great deal is understood through the body long before it is understood through words. That is the whole point of starting where we start.

2. Does pre-registering commit me to anything? No. It's free, involves no payment, and doesn't hold a place: it gets you the registration link before anyone else. You decide in March, having paid nothing.

3. When does registration open? March 2027. Pre-registered families receive the link a few days before it opens to the public. Places are then confirmed between 15 and 30 June 2027 — so you have the answer before you plan the new school year.

4. My child has never done any theatre. Is that a problem? No. The workshop is built for beginners. Everything starts from exploring: walking, looking, listening, trying. No prerequisites, no audition.

5. How are the groups organised? Three groups run one after another on Wednesday afternoon: 6-7 at 1.30pm, 8-9 at 2.40pm, 10-11 at 4.05pm. Each child comes once a week, to the group for their age. Choose the group for your child’s age in September 2027. Any alternative will be discussed with you, taking their age and available places into account.

6. Can my child also do Carnets de terrain? No. Our two workshops run the same Wednesday afternoon — you'll need to choose. Compare the two

7. Will they have to learn lines at home? The work is done in the session. Lines are learnt by playing them, out of the situation. With the older groups a scene may call for a little memorising at home, in the run-up to a performance.

8. Is there a show? No, and that's deliberate. The workshop isn't built around an end-of-year performance: every session is a full session of acting, and every child gets on the floor. The children perform for the rest of their group each week, rather than for an audience once a year.

9. Where do the sessions take place? Avenue de la Gare 40 in Lausanne, two minutes from the station and the main bus routes. Practical details for arrival and drop-off go out to families before the first session.

10. What should my child wear? Loose clothes they can move in. We send the practical details before the first session.

11. Can we come on selected weeks only? No. This is built as a year-long course, with progression from one week to the next. That's what lets the children genuinely learn, and the group get to know each other.

12. Who looks after the children? Sessions are taught by Loïc Berger-Jalil, trained at the Cours Florent. As with all our activities, every adult working with children provides a special extract from the criminal record and signs our code of conduct. Our child protection measures

13. How does payment work? The year is paid in 10 instalments of CHF 80, by invoice, plus the CHF 120 registration fee once a year. The first payment is due before the first session, then each instalment at the end of the month for the month ahead. A single annual payment is also possible.

14. Why start with the body rather than a text? Because a seven-year-old repeating a text they don't understand is learning to recite, not to act. Starting from the body, they discover they already have something to say — and the text, when it comes, becomes something to play rather than something to get right.

15. Can I pre-register more than one child? Yes, up to three children through the same form, with one workshop choice for each. A second parent’s contact details are optional.

CHF 80 per month, in 10 instalments from September 2027 to June 2028, plus a CHF 120 annual registration fee. One session every Wednesday, outside Vaud school holidays, lasting one to one and a half hours depending on the group. All materials are included.

Pre-registration is free, with no payment or commitment. It does not reserve a place: it gives you priority access to registration in March 2027. Places will be confirmed between 15 and 30 June 2027. No payment is due before confirmation.

One form lets you pre-register up to three children. For each child, enter their date of birth, choose one workshop and tell us about any disability, health condition or support needs relevant to welcoming them. For theatre, choose the group for their age in September 2027. A second parent’s contact details are optional.

Open the pre-registration form

The information submitted through the form is used to manage your pre-registration, contact you about the workshops and prepare to welcome your child.

Thirty places for September 2027, ten per group. Pre-registered families hear first when registration opens.

Pre-register my child

• Carnets de terrain: our outdoor art workshop, the same Wednesday afternoon.
• Holiday camps: a week outdoors, every season.
• Adventure days: a day of exploring, on a Saturday or a day off school.