One of the most frequently encountered words in the avant-garde theatre community has become the term “workshop.” Everywhere one turns, there is talk of a new workshop being offered, or of so-and-so's workshop of last summer, or desperate inquiries of young actors concerning whether so-and-so is giving another workshop soon, and if so how does one get in? Clearly, the experimental theatre workshop is now a popular phenomenon rather than the exclusive domain of a select few. Publications such as Viola Spolin's Improvisation for the Theatre (1963), Jerzy Grotowski's Towards a Poor Theatre (1968) and Robert Pasolli's A Book on the Open Theatre (1970) have been responsible for disseminating workshop ideas to mass audiences, while many groups' early touring efforts helped to reach audiences and actors who might never have found out that an alternative form of theatre existed.