Work Experience at Watford Palace Theatre

The main Function of Watford Palace Theatre is to provide entertainment through performances and films. It also does workshops for local schools and the community. Attached to the theatre is a cafe encouraging the public to come in and to bring the community together.

This is what Watford Palace Theatre say on their website as their mission.
“The creative hub at the heart of Watford, the Palace engages people through commissioning, creating and presenting high-quality theatre, and developing audiences, artists and communities through exciting opportunities to participate.”

The theatre puts on an annual pantomime which gives local young children the chance to audition and participate. This is the show is extremely popular and sales the most tickets in the year. Personally I really enjoy the pantomime and have been going with my family for many years. I can still remember being a very little girl and seeing my first pantomime there. Their pantomimes may not have stars in them but they are better than any other one I have seen. They believe in doing it the traditional way.

Throughout the year in puts on plays that are on tour around the country. They cover all themes to try and appeal to all the sections in the community. The theatre also gives the opportunity for the community to showcase their talents. They put on shows such as Platform One for this. This is a show that allows local dance schools, dance troupes and schools to perform pieces of dance they have put together. I have taken part in this performance and it’s been my favourite show to perform in. Every two years I look forward to taking part. In addition to this they run workshops, theatre arts programmes and offer work experience opportunity to local school children.

It’s not just a theatre that opens during the evening to put on performances, it has a lot more to it. It’s located right in the heart of Watford in the middle of the community they aim to bring together.  

You may not think there many jobs in the theatre but when you look into it there are a variety of jobs that need to be done to keep the theatre running. The mind-map attached lists all the jobs the theatre currently employs people to do. All the jobs split into five main categories but they still all link together. The jobs available are common to all theatres but the number of jobs depend on the size of the company and theatre. Different theatres do things differently though. For example some theatres may use the same designer the whole year through but others may hire on in for different performances.  

I have picked the job of being an actor because this is the job that most interested me and it’s something I’d like to do in the future. Doing this job meant I had to rehearse and perform a piece of drama at the end of our week of work experience. This allowed everyone to take a job and put together a performance for an audience. The piece we performed was called Alice by Laura Wade and I played the part of Tweedledum.    

On the Thursday morning of our work experience we did an acting workshop. This allowed us to experience how actors get to know each other and learn how to work well with each other. We need a number of different exercises to get used to our surrounds and the other actors. This helped us to decide whether we wanted to take an acting role in our performance at the end of the week.

One of the exercises we did was moulding each other into an emotion we were given. Not only did we have to think about the faces but the whole body language as well. This made us think about that acting isn’t just all about the lines being said but getting into the character and putting across emotions.

We also did some acting in our directing workshop on Wednesday afternoon. This made us think about how the director and actors worked together. We were told that some directors knew exactly what they wanted but others would want the actors to put in their input. Being an actor you have to adjust to the different directors and their views.

On Friday morning we all decided what roles to take and I chose acting. We were given the script and started going through the lines. Once we were familiar with the lines and what it was about we started to talk through acting it out with our director. We did it step by step giving the director our ideas as well. We followed stage directions and used props at the appropriate times. We had to let the stage manager know where we needed all our props and when we needed them. Earlier in the week we had a workshop introducing us to stage management so we understood the job and gave the stage manager all the information he needed to know. We then rehearsed our piece through stopping and starting if the director wanted anything changing or if the stage manager had a question.

We also ran it through with lighting and sound so they knew their cues. It is important this happens so the piece of drama can run smoothly without a lot of stopping and starting. Lighting and sound also had to work with the director because they needed to know what kind of affects they wanted and at what time. Rehearsal time is crucial so that everyone knows what they need to be doing.

We had a very successful drama piece that ran smoothly and our audience enjoyed. Our audience were surprised by the quality of the performance with only a few hours of rehearsal time going into it. Normally actors would have weeks and even months to rehearse their piece and get it right. They forgave us for still using the scripts but we didn’t have enough time to learn our lines. I really enjoyed the acting progress and would definitely like to have a future involving it.     

I’d like to focus on the job of the designer. I didn’t think I would be the slightest bit interested in this job but the workshop surprised me and I really enjoyed it. I am not the best drawer in the world but I learnt from the workshop that you didn’t have to be the best drawer to be able to do this job.

In our workshop on Wednesday morning we started learning about design in the theatre. Designing means designing the set and the costumes for the characters. The designer needs to be given the script so they know what the set needs to be like and what the characters are like. When they have the script research is done to help them come up with ideas. This helps them get more of an image in their head of what they want and what is needed. This can be different for different designers though.

The design work very closely with the directors as they have some input into what the set and costumes look like. Some directors have a clear idea and tell the designer exactly what they want but other may not be so sure and ask the designer to come up with some of the ideas.

They may also come into rehearsals and see how the actor is playing each character. This can give them more of an idea of how they want the character to look. Yet again the director does have say in this. It’s also important the characters know what they are wearing and are comfortable in it before performing in it. It’s the designer’s job to make sure they give the actors the costumes to rehearse in. For example if a woman has to wear 6 inch heels in the performance and she’s never worn heels before, she is going to need to practise in them.

The designers work closely with the costume constructors and set constructors to make sure all their designers are possible. Things like measurements all need to be taken into consideration. The designers job is not as easy as it sounds. They can’t just draw or create the first thing that pops into their mind, a lot of time and ideas have to go into it.

In our workshop we were shown set and costumes and asked what we thought the story was about and what the mood of the scene was. It was very easy to tell by looking at the set and costume. It immediately told us the era and the mood. It could also give us some clues on what the play was about or what the character was like.

After having some idea on set and costume design it was our turn to design our own. We were given a template of an empty room and given an emotion; mine was abandoned. We then had to make the room look like that emotion. For mine I made it look like no one had lived there for a while but I than found it made it look haunted. To change this I draw a normal street outside the window and door. This made it look like life still goes on outside the house and no one is bothered about it being there.

We then moved onto costume. We got given the script ‘Alice’ and were given to characters to focus on. We partner up and did the character Tweedledum and Tweedledee. We had to decide together have to interpret the character with the costume. I worked with Chloe and we decided to go for the naughty school boy look. We decided this after looking through the script. We made one of the boys look scruffier as we believed he was more of a bold character and took charge in the partnership.

I was really happy with both my designs and if we had time I would have developed them more. I have now learnt designing is not all about being good at drawing, you have to be creative. You may be able to draw but if you’re not creative you’re not going to get very far.