The Perfect Placement:
After a trying and difficult time searching for a placement that felt right and beneficial to me and my future career plans, I finally secured one with Bruiser Theatre Company in Belfast. My placement does not start until January. However, I have been working closely with Bruiser since the summer on different projects. When my placement begins, I will be working under the Educations Officer – Cheryl O’Dwyer. You may be wondering why Bruiser is the perfect placement for me, and the answer is simple. The company’s vision and mission are to provide training, education and development to young people who are interested in the arts sector. My career goal is to start my own business with the vision of helping young people and adults who suffer from ill mental health and find drama to be a form of release and a way to express themselves, and to help them overcome difficult situations. Therefore, I can learn a lot from Bruiser and their way of providing useful tools to the community.
How my search began:
Before I continue to tell you about my placement lets rewind to how my search for the perfect placement began. I began searching for my placement in January 2023, at this point I thought that I wanted to continue my education by doing a PGCE and therefore I was contacting different secondary schools, all of which got back to me relatively quickly. However, as summer approached, I realised that I wanted my career path to follow something in Arts Management and education outside of schools. Therefore, I began to contact different theatre companies, theatres, and event planning organisations. I found it to be much more difficult to find a placement in this line of work. Most places I contacted never responded. Thankfully, at the very last minute, Bruiser Theatre Company agreed to take me on for my placement. During this part of my journey, I began to consider the Gibbs Reflective Cycle, and how it would be important to use throughout my entire placement experience. From the beginning of searching for the perfect placement to the end and evaluation of my experience.
“It is not sufficient simply to have an experience in order to learn. Without reflecting upon this experience, it may quickly be forgotten, or its learning potential lost. It is from the feelings and thoughts emerging from this reflection that generalisations or concepts can be generated. And it is generalisations that allow new situations to be tackled effectively”.
Gibbs, 1998, (Cited by John McCarthy, 2011, P.9).
At the very beginning of this journey I found this quote to be very valuable and assured to take note of everything I encountered to allow me to reflect to the best possible measure.
What will my placement entail?
When I first secured my placement, I was not sure what it would involve. I had no idea for weeks if I would be facilitating classes, working behind the scenes, or managing the books. Eventually, after a meeting with Cheryl I discovered that my placement would involve a bit of everything. In working with the Educations Officer, I will be expected to carry out tasks in planning and facilitating theatre classes, venue hire, managing bookings, contacting funders, schools, parents, and colleagues, reports, evaluations, recruitment, contracts, and letters of offer. This placement does still lend itself to a more educational experience, however there are great managerial aspects within it that I would not gain experience in if I was working in a school setting. I feel that I was initially worried because I had no idea what to expect, and I still do feel this to an extent because I have not begun my placement yet. However, after my discussion with Cheryl I do feel much more at ease, and excited to start.
My history with Bruiser:
Bruiser did not randomly fall into my lap. I had to work hard and gain relationships with the team there. Over the summer I was accepted into the Bruiser Graduate Academy, 2023. On completion of this I asked Lisa May, the artistic director if there would be a placement available for me. Prior to myself, Bruiser had never taken on anyone for a placement. However, after discussion with their team Lisa got back to me saying that Cheryl would be happy to take me on. I mentioned that my placement does not begin until January, which is quite a bit of time between initial contact and beginning of work. Therefore, I applied for Bruiser’s first ever adult weekly classes. This would ensure that I was maintaining a connection with the team and keeping up to date with all that they were doing prior to my placement. During my experiences as a cast member with Bruiser I am getting inside knowledge and retrospect of the company before beginning my placement.
How could this history be beneficial during my placement?
Gaining experience with the company before my placement begins has great benefits, but it can be seen as an obstacle too. I believe that this inside experience prior to my placement will have a positive impact because I will have an idea of how to run things and how they expect things to be done before starting. Although, it may have a negative impact on me personally during my placement because I will be aware of how they do things, and this may lead to me feeling discouraged to do things my own way and use my own thoughts and creativity. I am not overly worried about this though, because I know the team and I know how friendly they are and how welcoming they are to new ideas and developments.
“[Cheryl] is a passionate advocate that theatre can change the lives of young people in a positive way”.
Bruiser Theatre Company, Website.
I find it to be great practise and an honour to work and learn from someone with an ethos so closely to my own.
My placement and my future:
I mentioned that I want to start my own business in the future. I also have a great interest in arts management, and I believe that a master’s course on this topic will be beneficial to me when it comes to starting and running my own company – in both the creative aspect and the practical aspects. I have recently applied for a Master’s of the Arts course at Queen’s University Belfast in Art’s Management, and I have been offered a conditional offer. My placement will help me with experience that will be relevant in this course. Particularly with the module on essential and practical skills that will be developed during my placement and then further built upon during my MA. These skills include strategic planning, financial management, business planning and engaging audiences. The definition of arts management according to Dan Martin tells us that it is a mix of the traditional management criteria and the creative industry.
“The application of the five traditional management functions – planning, organising, staffing, supervising, and controlling – to the facilitation of the production of the performing or visual arts and the presentation of the artists work to audiences”.
Dan Martin, 1998, (Cited in Derrick Chong, 2010, P.5).
This empowers me with greater confidence that I am on the right path for what I envision for my future and that my placement will give me an insightful experience into what my career choice may be like.
The overall journey so far:
My journey so far has taught me a lot about the foundations of job hunting in such a niche sector. I have learnt that it is difficult to find contacts and create and maintain required relationships to help me on my path. In the future I will be more knowledgeable in how to overcome this obstacle and use that to help me network and hold onto any contacts that may be beneficial to me in the future. I am feeling encouraged that I was able to find a placement with such benefits for my future goals and aspirations and plan to work hard over the next 6 months to learn and gain instrumental knowledge, skills, and qualities.
Bibliography
Bruiser Theatre Company, about page. About | Bruiser Theatre Company, Northern Ireland About (Accessed on 16 Nov. 2023).
Chong, Derrick. Arts Management, Taylor & Francis Group, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/qub/detail.action?docID=472498.
John McCarthy (2011) Reflective Writing, Higher Education and Professional Practice, Journal for Education in the Built Environment, 6:1, 29-43, DOI: 10.11120/ jebe.2011.06010029.