Roles and Responsibilities

Executive Assistant  (at the Almedia Theatre) 

Their main role is to give day to day assistance to the executive director and the artistic director. They need to be able to organize themselves and others in an office environment and communicate with people of a number of mediums such as phone calls, emails or face to face. They have to be able to prioritize tasks in the workload and maintain a functioning team. They have to take calls on behalf of the directors, and deal with them accordingly. They have to coordinate the calenders and schedules of the directors. They have to conduct research and prepare correspondence.  They also have to to manage house seat problems or issues and liaise with the box office.

Workshop Facilitator

This term we have all taken on the role of a workshop facilitator. This means as opposed to just being students it is down to us to take control of the sessions and push the client group to create work. At the beginning of the project this meant running games and organised activities for us and the turn around centre people. However, as the project developed on and a clearer picture of our final performance emerged it meant taking more of a back seat role and allowing them to create their music and share their stories. This role varies depending on who your client group are but the main aim to plan activities which will allow them to engage creatively with the project. And if they are unaware of their creative talents try finding ways to make them realise their full potential.

Only Connect

Only connect is a company which provides many crime prevention schemes. They have a men's club for offenders and youth in risk of offending in Kings cross. They also have many other programmes based in London to prevent crime and to help ex-offenders. They see ex offenders as having potential to be an asset in society as opposed to a liability. They want to access their creative and productive side. This hopefully will make them realise the possibilities of a life outside of crime and pursue a healthier lifestyle for themselves and their family.

OC Central 

OC central is a members club for ex offenders, prisoners and youth at risk of offending in Cubitt Street Kings cross. The members of the club take part in and produce creative work. They teach them disciplines required for creative work working in a team, working towards a final goal, taking direction and inhabiting roles. They do this in a non formal setting in the hope to allow for personal discovery. They have many performance opportunities where the members get to feel a sense of achievement and pride in their work. This is something they might not have got in the formal education system. They believe the causes of crime are a lack of positive role models and a support system for people. OC aims to creative a happy community where people feel supported and create a space for people who are other wised judged and looked down upon have a place to come and regain hope.

OC Impact

OC impact is lead by facilitators and trained ex offenders. They use performance, role play, and music to motivate young people who are at risk of offending. They target issues of peer pressure, drugs, street culture and weapons. The performances are sculpted by members using their own personal stories and experiences, they are then directed and scripted professionally. The aim to is to deliver an alternative approach to tackling anti social behaviour in schools and to motivate young people in a new exciting and interactive way.

Final performance

We finally had our final performance today. The day started with lots of run throughs of the piece, a tech to sort out lighting and sound and a nice warm up to focus everyone in. We ended up having a huge audience, who came up to me after and praised the worked we had done which felt great. I feel like in the end we managed to create something which was powerful, had a message and most of all we enjoyed doing it.

We were all quite emotional towards the end as we knew it was the last time we would all be in the same room to create work together. It was an extremely positive experience in which I got to meet some new people who really changed my perspective on a world I knew little about and I feel like we did the same for them. The memorable moment for me was when one client came up to me saying how much he was going to miss this, because now he had nothing to do. That really hit home for me because I realised a lot of the time this was just a project for us but for them it was an opportunity. I hate to think of a group of such talented and lovely people feeling like they aren't worth turning themselves around for. Because I have no doubt they are all capable of it.

At the end of the performance Matthew our teacher said ' Thank you for trusting us with your stories and letting us work with you' to which one of the clients responded ' thanks for trusting us to be here, we could have nicked your car or anything'. This was obviously very funny and made us all realise how close we had all got that we could have a joke about the serious sides of ourselves. It also made me think about how far we as BRIT students had come from being scared they might nick our phone to bonding with them and creating some really great work.

One week to go.... :'(

Today was good because we had a chance to rehearse in the space we were performing in. And have a proper run through of what we are going to be doing next week. We solidified what we were doing in Josh's story and practiced the running order with the songs live. Everyone was quite excited all day because we were going to be able to hear the songs in the studio at the end of the day.

Towards the end of the day everyone began losing focus a bit. I think our clients although looking forward to performing weren't used to a harsh rehearsal process. Also I think we as facilitators forgot that it was our job to keep the energy going and drive the focus of the group.

Finally we got to hear the songs. This was really exciting and they sounded amazing. The turn-around people seemed really happy with their CD's and no matter how the performance goes they will have something positive to hold onto to forever from the process.

Recording!

Today the turn around center and brit kids involved in the songs got to go into the studio to record them. The idea is that they will all have a CD to take home and remember the process by. I was not involved in the recording but I heard it was really successful and everyone conducted themselves professionally. We are all excited to hear the finished product and we are grateful for the music departments time they have dedicated to helping us make it all possible.

While they were in the recording studios we had time with the other clients to work on their arts award. This was another aim of the project. To get them a small award they could put on their CV's or just to have to feel like they have accomplished something. I think this is really important because after showing them the education video in our spoken word workshop many of them shared with us how they felt done over by education. Many left with little or no qualifications and many got kicked out of school. I feel like they would appreciate something like the arts award which is recognizable by colleges and employers and they can be proud of something that they enjoyed being a part of.

Part of what they have to do is review a show so Sarah organised a trip for them to go and see 'some like it hip hop' by zoo nation dance company. In order to write these we went to the library with them when they weren't in the studios to help them write up reviews of the show. From what I could tell they really enjoyed it and for some it was the first time they ever went to the theatre. With a little help they managed to write their reviews and some even went on to the next step of the project which was to research an artist they admire.  While they were doing their work we also had a chance to catch up on any strand work or blog work.