Personal Project

Chosen Concept

I've chosen to work on a workshop targeted at people looking for ways to get into industry, and to gain the experience and knowledge they need for this. The main reason I've chosen this as my project is due to my personal preference for helping others and as much as public address can be challenging for me at times I thoroughly enjoy it. Another reason is technical theatre is a foreign subject for many people due to either lack of awareness or approachability and I believe that by increasing peoples understanding of the industry more people (especially the youth) will be able to explore the career to full potential. Furthermore I have considered a future for myself in facilitation many times over my life and feel as though this is a great opportunity to find out exactly how much I would like to keep considering this option.

Other than my personal reasons, this concept will also require me to expand on more skills, such as facilitation, which the other concepts didn't make room for. It will also give me extra reason to look more into higher education and career opportunities in order to benefit myself in the near future.

Overall, the main deciding factor on this concept was personal interest. This concept will allow me to explore something new and that has interested me for many years whereas Concept 1 is already something I will have to do which would decrease my interest over time, and Concept 2 is just overly simplistic and doesn't hold much interest to me as there isn't a lot to improve myself on with that option.

Project Brief

I would like to focus the workshop around career and educational opportunities within the industry in order to widen the understanding of separate ways you can enter and develop a career in the different sectors of theatre - this would include skills that may be needed, opportunities in higher education and apprenticeships, the many career opportunities role wise within the sectors, and popular names and companies that you may look to work with in the future. I would mainly approach this in interactive activities which would not only help with peoples attention in the workshop but it would also help me to keep building and adapting the workshop towards them and their interests.

Preferably I would like my target audience to be young adults / 16-18 year old's as I feel it would benefit these age groups the most however that doesn't mean other age groups aren't also able to participate. And terms of accessibility I will also aim to make it as approachable as I can for as many groups as it isn't fair in my mind to disregard anyone due to a situation they cant necessarily control - this may mean I have to attempt to include anything in order to help make sure everyone can participate in the workshop. As long as my audience have a passion/interest in the arts then the workshop is for them.

I plan for the workshop to last between 1-2 hours leaving time for any questions or reruns as the main aim for the workshop is understanding, not knowledge intake - I'd rather not get through all the content and have them understand what we have gone through, then rush through it all and have it not be understood.

Initial Tasks

• Find places to offer these workshops to and host at

• Begin having discussions with Phil to help me learn how to plan sessions 

• Start on a public brief that can be sent out to organizations / schools 

Contacting The Sources

Highschools

The East Manchester Academy (TEMA)

I started my conversation with TEMA prior to having my brief completed which looking back wasn't the smartest idea but it worked out in the end. It was a lot of back and forth about times and availabilities but eventually we decided on early in the New Year. When we reached the new year I was informed I'd only be able to do one session with that at the given times due to their exam schedules and coursework deadlines. With this in mind I then offered them an alternative session similar to what I did with Kevin's Group - a personalized session to help the students get the most out of it. 

See 'TTF Session 1' for more details.

St Patrick's RC Highschool (St Pat's)

After being shown the advertisement I emailed the contact provided in a similar way to what I sent to TEMA - once again this was prior to my brief being completed which is a fault on my end. At first they seemed very interested and even offered a slot a week later which I had to turn down since it was so last minute. We was continuing to communicate up until the new year and were getting towards organizing a date for me to start my workshops when I stopped getting responses. After a series of unanswered follow-up emails I came to the decision they were no longer interested and left it there.

Fred Longworth Highschool (Freddie's)

I sent off an initial email explaining rather simply how I had gained their contact, what I was doing and offering the opportunity to them (with the brief attached). I received a response asking for more information such as how long I would need for the sessions, what exactly they would cover, which I responded to promptly with all the necessary information. 

The Royal Exchange (External)

After talking to a few of my contacts at the Exchange I have been given the opportunity to hold some work with the Beswick Young Company - A project in collaboration to the Local Exchange Project (BOC) and RXC Young Company. When discussing dates we decided time-frames would have to be around late April/May due to clashes but are still due to set an exact date.

Planning Sessions

For this project I decided to do three separate workshops to cover as many of the basics of Production Arts as I could. The focus of these three workshops would be: 1. Management & Props, 2. Lighting, 3. Sound & AV (Audio Visual)

For my workshops with Kevin's groups I had to plan a personalized session to best meet what they needed from me.

Below are images of my planning for this session:

Resources/Equipment Needed

Slides showing extra research and how what they've done would connect to the industry of that topic - one PowerPoint for entire Project.

Workshops with Kevin's Group

Once it was agreed I would be doing sessions with his groups Kevin invited me in to meet them and introduce myself. Whilst I was there I gave a run down of what I was working on and asked Kevin what he felt would be more beneficial for them. Kevin figured that since my personal background is in Stage Management, I should work with the stage managers in his groups and go through the basics with them. 

We agreed that I would do my sessions on the 12th of November which gave me around a week and a half to make sure I was in a decent position, however due to other events I was working at the time I was left with one day to actually plan the session. During this planning I took into account what the actors are required to do as part of their assignment leading me to prioritize their understanding of roles, making a SM Book, and writing meeting minutes. 

Due to short notice I had made an agreement with Phil to borrow some of the resources he owns: one being a roles game, another which creates a timeline of a production period, and a risk assessment treasure hunt. These massively helped me be able to ease into the sessions.
I also took an old DSM book alongside a few copies of meeting minutes so they would have physical copies to reference. 

Session 1 ran pretty well, they all participated well and were more than happy to have a little competition once I split them into teams for a risk assessment task. The feedback I received after the session was all positive as well which helped give me some extra motivation for the second session I had later in the day.
My main concerns from this session was timings as we ran over by almost 10 minutes - however this wasn't entirely on my planning skills as Kevin had asked me to cover measuring stages with them last minute. This knowledge led me to alter and adjust the layout of my second session.

The adjusted plan made Session 2 run even smoother, they were a well organized group and very quickly got through the first two activities. Once we eventually got onto looking through the SM book and meeting minutes I was able to let them lead the conversation a bit more and had them let me know what they wanted to go over in more detail since we had the time. Similarly to the first session, we finished off by measuring staging before I asked how they found it and announced the winning team since they was very competitive with one another. Once again I received very positive feedback, the only comment that wasn't the happiest is that they didn't get a longer session, which Ill still take as a good thing. 

Off The Stage Project - Work Experience