Work experience, by Alfreya Bell, June 2017

This week (June 2017), I was given the opportunity to shadow Caroline Pearce, producer of Jabberwocky Market and director of Luxi, as part of my work experience. Apprehensive as I was at the beginning of the week, I was soon very comfortable and enjoying this side of the theatre work that I had never seen in such depth before. When I leave college, I hope to move onto Drama/musical theatre school, therefore, this work experienced has let me see drama from a much bigger platform and not just from an actor’s perspective. During the course of the week I have met a variety of people all coming from different backgrounds and having different roles in the theatre world, whether it was during meetings or when I was able to sit in on my very first script reading.

One of the main things I enjoyed that week was working on the Jabberwocky Stall which we had during the Stanhope Park Fair. The next show that Jabberwocky are doing is based on dreams that haven’t been fulfilled yet, so the aim of the stall was to meet a variety of different people and to gain their first hand experiences of not accomplishing a dream or aspiration yet. This was enjoyable for me because it helped boost my confidence talking to new people and to encourage them to achieve that dream sooner rather than later.

In terms of skills I think I’ve improved on in this short amount of time would definitely include how I view performances. This week, I’ve been exposed to a number of different shows, either online or in person, which not only has widened my knowledge of different styles, but has allowed me to log information about each one. This, in turn, has forced me to really think about how theatre makes me feel on a more personal level, which I have never done in such detail before. Another skill I have come to realise is very important is being very open minded. I have viewed how in this role this attribute is key

One of the things I wanted to achieve this week was to be able to take as much information as I could to take with me in the future. Having these because of the vast amount of people you have to be connected to and the different views and opinions they will have. Even when it came to performances I had to watch, I had to keep an open mind purely because I’d never been exposed to as many styles before. Overall, I don’t believe I could have chosen a better place to do my work experience as it was exactly what I needed to see because of the path I want to take later on in life and I want to say a huge thank you to Caroline for letting me tag along and having an amazing week.