I don’t work in the theatre full time I’m just here for a week of work experience. I have been tasked with all number of different jobs which have tested my mental and physical skills but most importantly tested me in how to deal with last minute changes to my schedule – something I struggle with in my day-to-day life.
I guess you could say the team at the theatre made it easy for me with my first task - sticking information labels on leaflets for upcoming shows and cutting out information about Darlington Hippodrome from The Northern Echo, but these jobs are ones which have to be done on a regular basis so I saved someone else from doing it so that they could now focus on more important jobs. But through doing these jobs I learnt how to finish a project in a short amount of time to meet the required deadline. I enjoyed these tasks because they were relaxing and were not too taxing on my first day.
In the theatre every season there is a new brochure telling everyone about the productions which are coming in to the theatre. In my week of work experience we were expecting delivery of the new season brochures so there was a lot of work to do to ensure we could store the huge amount of boxes from the printers. This was the task which really tested my physical skills and my mental skills to just keep going and not to give up. But I enjoyed it because it was just me and the task at hand - I knew exactly what I was doing and what was expected of me.
It’s not all physical work at the theatre, but making sure all the promotional print is displayed correctly, the theatre is always welcoming and that people’s working environments are kept tidy does require an amount of physical effort – remember, the theatre is spread over three floors!
This week has taught me to never give up and I will take this into my school life to work harder and to make sure I finish all tasks on time. I have learnt to go into all tasks with a positive attitude. So all that’s left to say is thank you Darlington Hippodrome for giving me this incredible life lesson.
Charlie’s Work Experience day by day
Monday
The first thing I did on Monday was add stickers to a leaflet. After that I was given a couple of newspapers from previous days, I was then asked to cut out anything which was connected to the events coming to Darlington Hippodrome. Later in the morning I went down to the poster cupboard were I collected three show posters as well as having already got two Darlington Hippodrome ones. These were going to be laminated and put on display in the indoor market. Downstairs was 120 boxes full of old brochures which needed to be recycled before the new brochures arrived later in the week. So I got rid of most of them with a few bits still left in the back of the cupboard. Most of the afternoon was spent in a marketing meeting talking about shows and ticket sales for future productions.
Tuesday
The first thing I did was start this write-up for my work experience week, and then I finished and got rid of the last 25 boxes of old brochures. For the following 2 hours I was at an archive session where I was looking through the old finances of the Civic Theatre. I had the job to scan, crop and save over 75 pages of valuable archive material. In the afternoon three of us went out to Yarm and Northallerton to distribute posters for The Great Joe Wilson show and Duet for One. Shops were given an offer if they agreed to display the posters.
Wednesday
The first thing I did was start a blog report for the website - this will hopefully help with publicity and getting more young people involved with the theatre in terms of work experience. The rest of the day was spent stuffing 475 envelopes with posters and leaflets. The first 75 envelopes were to be filled with four show posters with a voucher. The remaining 400 envelopes had a smaller “The Great Joe Wilson” leaflet with a letter. That was most of my day on Wednesday at the Hippodrome.
Thursday
Today I have helped put up some shelving and we made the print storage area behind stage door look a lot more tidy and professional. I spent an hour or so sitting next to Nic at the Box Office learning how the Hippodrome ticket sales system works and watched and listened to Nic dealing with members of the public wanting to buy tickets or find information about shows.
Friday
Finished up my blog for the website and then for the rest of the day I was sorting out all the new brochures which arrived this morning. 775 boxes of brochures to be moved from stage door to various store areas around the theatre.
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