Personal Arts Development

My challenge - What?

I wish to improve my knowledge and experience of arts / project management and facilitation.

Current Skills & Why

I am currently quite good at organising people and myself. I tend to normally be able to file documents away in a structured fashion on a computer and I have some knowledge on arts practices and procedures. For example, I know that in order to put on an event you must first write the plan for it, and in doing so liaise with numerous suppliers for costumes & designs (if needed), technical facilities, staffing, venue and insurance. And perhaps most importantly so is to liaise with possible funding organisations, investors or sponsors.

These skills are quite basic and the process above is something that I would consider to be more commonsense sense, and surrounding, plan for every eventuality and ensure you have everything covered. I had admittedly completed a silver artsaward previously, and here I had the challenge to develop as a general technician with a particular focus on lighting design. But I did incorporate some limited aspects of production and stage management, my taster experiences in this are what are fuelling my ambition to develop. This is why I would like to extend my arts practice and develop skills in arts management, although this definition for me incorporates the following areas:

Project Co-Ordination / Management
Event Management
Production Management
Stage Management
Organisational Management

These areas I feel are important to extend my overall arts management skills, and whilst some opportunities to develop skills may occur not necessarily within the arts sector specifically I believe if I make the most of these then they will contribute further to my learning. Moreover, I will also participate wherever I can in projects that are led by these such people actively involved in the afore mentioned areas, by observing how they conduct themselves and deliver the material I feel I can develop theoretical practices too.

Moreover, something that goes hand in hand with arts management is facilitation in a wider concept. Previous experience has shown to me that communication skills are of the utmost importance and being able to take on board what is being said by others can make a project really progress, an effective way of doing this is by using targeted facilitation in conjunction with the coincidental facilitation associated with production meetings, arts organisation meetings etc. Again I will participate in activities that will help show me practice in the real sense of it and allow me to develop from an observer’s point of view.

What I need to do to achieve it?

In order to achieve my objective as set out above; ‘To improve my knowledge and experience of arts / project management and facilitation’ I will aim to undertake the following:

Attend training sessions
Deliver/facilitate sessions
Manage productions and stages
Manage & co-ordinate projects and its associated resources
Take up opportunities offered to me
Seek out these opportunities
Create my own opportunities for development

I will seek out these opportunities by asking advice and guidance to signpost me from my arts adviser and any other practitioners I come across. I will also use the internet and my peers to look at opportunities.

‘Organising myself’

I am going to need to seek out the opportunities and complete the activities I have outlined in the above section on ‘What I need to do to achieve it?’. I am unsure exactly on the time commitment involved for this other than the original research I will undertake. However I do know that in order to achieve my objectives I am going to need to at least be involved in a number of arts projects, several other projects, a few shows, and some training sessions. I anticipate needing to spend more than 200 hours working on the range of projects.

Staying on Track

I will record my progress by making notes on what I have learnt at that point and what I had done for each part of my project. I will also chart what involvements I have been involved in and what skills they required me to develop. Perhaps in still quite an abbreviated form but still a useful resource to refer to when considering my completion.

Public Showing

I will share my work through forums, discussions with peers, websites and through promotion of my activities at events and through actually using my new skills in projects and productions. Therefore using a mix of formal and informal techniques, celebrating indirectly and directly my involvements. To record some of this I will use snapshots of screens, pictures, video recording, through the mentioned notes and websites. By the very nature of my chosen art form nearly all of my work will be outwardly public anyway, and the aspects that lead up to a public showing (like the production management and administration) will eventually have the outcomes displayed through performances etc.

How do I know it is completed?

When I feel much more confident managing and facilitating artistic projects (including stages, shows, discussions and projects) and confident to have the capacity to do this personally I know I will have completed my objective. However I will also use constant evaluation of my work and look at the skills I am developing. As well as this personal evaluation I will continually use informal evaluation methods through conversation and discussion with others to assess my progress wherever possible. Once I feel I have achieved this I will ask a couple of people that I have come to work with over my artsaward experience to write a reference styled letter for me evaluating my contributions.

At the end of it all

Introduction to progress

Well I am now revisiting what I had said at the start of the year, and although it is quite odd to relive what skills I had before and what my plans were, fortunately the plans haven’t deviated too much and I had been looking in on this plan every now and then to check I was staying on target.

Now visiting it again for what will be one of the last times, I am pleased to think that having read through it all again word by word on superficial reflection I do think I have met my objective, implemented my plans, achieved what would determine my completion, and in fact think I have gone even further than I could imagine.

I am going to put a lot of this development down to my peers who have urged me to continue and mention my main resource for completing this and going far beyond my plans is as a result of creating opportunities with the National Children’s Bureau & the Arts Council for England.

I have developed my arts practice by being involved in numerous shows and events, some key ones of which are:

The Darogas Tale

A week’s run at the Garage, Norwich. A script created based on The Phantom of the Opera and Shakespeare’s Macbeth. The company performing it was Visceral Theatre and included a cast of people ranging from 14 years to the older generations. I was a stage manager on the show responsible for lighting and sound cues. This was relatively early in my artsaward as it was performed in April, but the process stretching a few months before allowed me to develop my communication skills essential for arts management through liaising with the director and other members of the production team. I had to attend a few production meetings and a number of rehearsals. And then of course I was involved in the production week where I was also tasked with completing the lighting design. Adding to the skills I required in multitasking and needing to manage my time and available resources. I really enjoyed the show as the cast and crew were really good people, generally supportive and helpful and I really learnt a lot about stage management in the process. The show was well received and received great reviews in the local press.

The Crucible

This was an Hours Adaptation performed at the West Suffolk Performing Arts Centre. I was the production manager and also took on responsibility as the stage manager whilst also doing the lighting and sound design along with the lighting operation and stage management ‘on the night’. There was only 2 performances but both were met with great audience responses. I found this show very hard work as the range of responsibilities suggest but I thoroughly enjoyed it and learnt a lot about arts practice. I worked with a freelance technician who if I needed was able to offer the odd bit of advice. This show was actually my final performance exam for my AS Level in Drama & Theatre Studies and I managed to score 101 from 120! As part of my examination (where I offered lighting design) I created a PowerPoint which can be found in the appendix along with a video of me de-rigging etc lights.

The Winters Tale

Listed as the production/stage manager I assisted in the development of the lighting but also helped by coordinating the allocation of resources to ensure we had the right set pieces for the show too, and liased with our receiving venue about the technical requirements and possibilities. With a first and consequent show at the West Suffolk performing Arts Centre it was also transferred as part of the Shakespeare Schools Festival to the Playhouse in Norwich. Again this was a new opportunity for me with more emphasis on the coordination of people to undertake and complete tasks, sometimes and arduous task in itself. It was also a venue I had little experience of working in in the past.

A Scary Play

This was a show performed by young people from the Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds Youth Theatre, as part of the National Theatre Connections festival. First performed at the Guildhall and then at the Garage theatre in Norwich. Listed again as the Production manager I also stage managed the show and undertook the lighting and sound design. As part of my role for this I coordinated the resourcing of the technical equipment, started liaisons to obtain a film crew for the filmed elements of the show, and arranged the crew to run sound and lighting. This was another one of those shows where a low budget and a number of people to go through slows progress and becomes a challenge to pull off, but this has taught me a lot about how to manage time and communicate with people and became an enjoyable show to see come to fruition.

Mix ‘n’ blend

This was a youth event funded by St Edmundsbury Borough Council. I was merely a young person helping to bring about the one night event but became a part of a very small key team in managing the event. I had arranged the lighting and sound for the bands and DJ’s and also arranged the alternative arts, including fire breathing and staff workshops so that I could increase the engagement of young people into the arts, perhaps in a more engaging and eye opening way they may not have considered before. Of course I was also involved in the marketing of the event and ran the set-up and get-out.

I am just a number

This was a film of another young person in my youth theatre. With my knowledge of lighting she came to me to ask about what she will be needing and where she could get it, fortunately by this point I had set up CEG Theatre Services and was even able to supply the equipment and staff support she needed. Something I don’t get to do a lot, a film, so it was interesting being behind the camera as all of my previous experience had been in front of one, normally in a studio or on location, so this showed me another aspect of the media and the arts and as such really broadened my horizons of skill and experience.

Summer Workshops – Sheringham Little Theatre

This was an interesting experience as for the first time ever I had been literally the only technician on site, giving me the whole responsibility for rigging, focusing, health and safety, programming / cue lists, technical rehearsals and running the shows. 2 weeks apart, each at the end of a summer school for children encapsulating singing, dancing and acting I had to pick up equipment and travel to the venue which was a stately home in a considerable size room. As mentioned responsible for everything and in such a short time any problems I had to fix, I had to work with the director and the cast (which was challenging with young children full of beans) efficiently in order to have enough time to pull off the show. With only 1 show the first week it seemed much easier as the second week had two shows in nearly the same time. This was a fully paid job in North Norfolk and really enhanced my interpersonal and time management skills.

Amid the Grey

This was also my A2 Theatre Studies piece which I offered production/design to for the examination. And ill start off by saying (without wanting to brag but show how good the show came out) that I scored 100% for my role as Production Manager and Lighting Designer. I also undertook the sound design and the stage management of the piece co-ordinating the movement of equipment and materials in order to transform venues from one thing to another using just basic set / props and lighting. This was a challenging site specific show which allowed me to take on these roles on top of operating sound & lighting for some scenes and also fill in as an actor for several scenes also. I felt like the shows whizzed by and absolutely knackered me each time as there was no chance to stop for a second between costume and venue changes etc. Taking on such an array of tasks and responsibilities taught me even more so how to manage my time more effectively.

BurySound

I feel I am out of things to say regarding how and where I have developed as I truly believe that I have done so in so many ways and so much. This event is a testament to this. A very big annual thing for Bury St Edmunds, with a series of heats and then a final; local young bands perform and compete to become the winners. In a large venue known as the Corn Exchange I had managed to successfully bid for the lighting contract off St Edmundsbury Borough Council for the event and was able to supply a team of technicians and lighting equipment, including special effects normally only found at the big budget national festivals, where I could develop even more in my people skills. With a team of people to manage (brief, co-ordinate etc) I was able to liaise between the organisers and my staff exactly what was needed so as to run the day efficiently and safely. I took this opportunity to bring along new and student technicians who I then trained on the job in various rigging, operating and safety tasks so as to not only extend my own skills in technical theatre but pass these on to others too.

Throwdown UK – Its Our Theatre Launch

After various other arts consultancy I have completed with the partners TheatreIs… & Sheringham Little Theatre I was asked by both parties (separately) to join them for the launch and prior meeting. I had a great afternoon and evening and ended up ‘saving their skins’. I managed to source some tracks for one of the performers, compiled a couple of cds of all the performers to aid the technician running the lighting & sound and even managed to compile suitable FOH tracks. I also helped with the set up FOH and attended the marketing meeting for the project as I had helped them earlier with the project plan / bid and appear to be continuing to work on the project in numerous ways. But 10 minutes before the show was due to kick off the Sheringham theatre technician asked, ‘Could you operate the sound please?’. So with less than 10 minutes to acquaint myself with the desk and other equipment being used including the tracks required and the channels for the different mics etc I managed to operate the first half with no problem. The audience (nearly all young people) absolutely loved the show going on. It was basically a series of new and street arts performances including break dancing, bopping, performance poetry (spoken word), guitar, beatboxing and whatever else the performers came up with in the night. This was the launch to a much larger project funded by the ACE which will produce a show that will tour North Norfolk, then bring young people together to workshop and learn the various styles and then a selection will go forward to a residential and produce a piece that they will tour nationally, including the International Theatre Conference (festival event) I am helping to plan in Liverpool in 2008.

The Gold Arts Event

Among the numerous other events I have been involved in through out the year TGAE was the one that I produced for this award. With ultimate responsibility for every aspect please see that section for information.

In order to extend my facilitation skills I have attended training with the National Children Bureau and Arts Council England to give me a range of techniques and styles of facilitation. I have facilitated for the Arts Council at a national festival, at national residential’s and in local venues with smaller groups. These have helped me to develop my practical skills in arts facilitation in every aspect involved including the communication & interpersonal skills required to arrange and lead such workshops. I have further facilitated with NCB a number of groups of young people and adults alike and my ‘Have I gone further beyond?’ comments below give more information. There is also information in my appendix.

Have I gone further beyond?

I have become an Associate Trainer in order to develop my facilitation skills in general and in particular to extend my knowledge in Participation work, key for getting to know how I could get more young people involved in the arts. This is with participation works, a consortium of national organisations including Save the Child UK, the National Youth Agency, National Children’s bureau, Children’s Rights Alliance, and the British Youth Council. www.participationworks.org.uk. Through this opportunity I have attended facilitation training sessions including a weekend residential and a continual professional development day. These have included training in managing the day including the health and safety, refreshments, attendees and scheduling as well as the physical activities that can be undertaken for the development of participation work. Evidence of such a job can be found on the appendices disk.

I have also set up a Theatre Services Company that is growing faster and faster with more staff and equipment, completing a range of jobs from private parties to band competitions, public events, dance shows, amateur dramatics and installations. I have been termed the Business Director of the company and have responsibility therefore for the running of it, including finance and marketing. I undertake every area to ensure both business and staff development takes place. www.cegtheatreservices.co.uk. Please see the website and the documents in the appendices for related information.

I have also become a national project communications co-ordinator for the Arts Council England, coordinating young people to film actors, directors, writers, technicians etc (famous and local hero’s) to gather how young people can get into the arts and learn of the experiences of others. www.getintotheatre.org. Again further evidential information can be found in the appendices.

I am also carrying out research assessments on theatres within the region and London to experience that side of arts management, the quality of service provision, and the compiled reports are then for the Arts Council East of England.

Summaries

The new work I have developed has involved the shows that I have been a part of producing, through contributing my skills to them. The public showings for my work have been continually through websites, mainly www.emrysgreen.co.uk, www.cegtheatreservices.co.uk & www.goldevent.org.uk. Evidence of such showings can be found either at these web addresses or in the appendices where I feature some of the website content, a vast array of pictures, and other documents including posters and programmes. I have received feedback throughout my arts development opportunities and I am pleased to say that it has nearly all been positive. I say nearly all because some has been useful constructive criticism which I was happy to receive so that I could develop into a better arts practitioner. An example of this was to cut some people a bit more slack when working which I had found whilst production managing Amid The Grey. Where deadlines were being missed and resulting in other people having to do extra work I came down relatively hard on those that weren’t pulling their weight in the production. Something that was met with mixed responses, some people realising this was needed and actually could feel the strain resulting from those not working hard enough and others who thought ‘its just a show’, and this generally came from those not being a part of the team. But I learnt from this experience that management involves very tough decisions and can often make you unpopular, but that to do it in a more delicate fashion is better for morale and I quickly reverted to a more supportive approach that sometimes found me doing more work but ended up with happier colleagues and a better quality / more efficient output as a result of this extra team bearing approach.

I have used a variety of information sources for information on the arts sector and development opportunities. One has been the Arts Council England Mailing lists (both jobs and news) whilst another has been from the Young People’s Participatory Theatre Project Coordinator and staff. It is through being involved in this project that I have come to work on the regional theatre assessments, the getintotheatre.org website, the cultural Olympiad development, and the actor/director/writer etc filming.