BLOG: Malakai

Day 1 – Monday 3 June

My first day at the Half Moon Theatre, my day began on my journey to the theatre, and I had accidentally taken a route that was two times longer than the correct one, but of course because I was very unfamiliar with the area in general; I had no idea until the next day. Although there were some troubles with my travel on the first day, I managed to arrive early (probably because I left my home early just in case). When I arrived at the theatre, I was quite nervous to meet everyone and get settled in. I pressed the buzzer to be let in by one of the staff. When I went through the doors, my first thought was that the theatre looked very similar to what I had pictured in my head. I went up the stairs and looked around for a moment, I was unsure on what to do as I remember reading that Lydia would come and greet me by the entrance. So, I waited around for a second until I saw Lydia walking round from the office and we officially introduced ourselves. I remember specifically at this moment when she went to shake my hand, at my school we had done an exercise where we had to practice hand shaking professionally and making sure that we set a good impression, so all that knowledge was rushing through my mind. (you could say I was overthinking It a bit…). Immediately after Lydia introduced me to most of the staff in the office and they all gave me a brief down on who they were and what their roles were within the theatre. After meeting the staff that were sat in the office, I left my bags and Lydia took me on a tour of the whole building.

The first place we looked at was the main theatre, as soon as I stepped in the room, I instantly noticed a very distinct smell (which was soon to be revealed that it was because there was a new floor that had recently been installed. I found this room very interesting because it looked almost identical to one of the studios in my current school. After Lydia showed me the room in which you’re in when you first enter the building, she did a very good job at explaining what everything was for and when it was normally used. She then took me upstairs where the green room, red room and a sort of rehearsal/meeting space are. It was also interesting to see all the pictures and information on the wall which showed many previous plays and information on Half Moon. I was the toured downstairs which wasn’t as appealing as the rest of the building but was still interesting to look at, this floor consisted of all the props, instruments and art supplies which I found fun to look around.

After the tour was completed, I was taken back to the office and got settled in and was given a folder which a form to fill out and a booklet to read through. As I was sitting reading through it, I remember Lydia offering to make hot drinks and I appreciated It a lot. I also had the choice to read through past blogs from other students who had spent their work experience here, I tried to read as many as possible because it was interesting to read about everyone else’s experiences and what they thought of the theatre as a whole. I remember meeting Saja for the first time, and I was asked to help bring her up some instruments for the Solar group (Youth Theatre later in the day). I was so grateful to get back up and do some more stuff and it was fun to pick out different instruments. When we got back to the office, and I was given a task to watch a previously performed piece by half moon and write some notes on it so I could do a review later. The play was called Daytime Deewane which was about these two cousins, Sadiq and Farhan who had both attended a daytime rave and it was revealed that Sadiq (the older cousin) had many things going on in his life and Farhan helped him get through that. I think this play was significant because it represented that how you act is not always how you are feeling because Sadiq was presented as a very chill and laid-back person, but he had a lot of problems.

After this I had my lunch break which I spent in the outside garden (I enjoyed going there because it was very peaceful due to no one being there. I ate my lunch and called my parents to tell them how everything was going, at this point I really enjoyed my time and was eager to spend more time here. After I had finished my lunch, it had only been around half an hour so was clueless on what to do for my remaining break, I decided I wanted to get familiar with the surrounding area and see if there were any parks or places to visit nearby. I wandered around before coming back to the theatre and start the work on the youth theatre, all the helpers gathered in a circle and talked about the session and what they would be doing, I was really clueless towards the start as everyone was talking about all of the students and talking about things that happened in the past weeks so I didn’t really know what to do other then sit there and listen. Once all the students arrived everything sort of chilled out and bit more and it because a very fun and relaxed session. This youth theatre was for teenagers with disabilities, and it consisted of tasks and activities, and although I felt bored at some points because the activities required a lot of patience, I put my boredom to one side and just enjoyed myself. The session finished at 8.25pm (give or take) and that was the end of my first day, I would say I really enjoyed myself and am excited to get involved in lots of the work and professional side of things throughout the following days.

Day 2 – Tuesday 4 June

Day 2 at the Half Moon Theatre, I was excited and ready to get back to work. I came in at 12pm and the first thing I did was got out the laptop and updated my blog for day , I sat in a different seat today because I used to sit in Emily’s seat but she was in today. Lydia wasn’t in for the first hour and neither was Androulla (whom I still haven’t met because she is sick) so I worked independently for an hour and a half on my blog and also writing my review for the play Daytime Deewane. After I had finished, Lydia and Saja gave me the task of redesigning the Youth Theatre board, which I found really fun due to art being one of my strong suits. I didn’t finish the board so am planning to finish it off on day 3. Time was flying past and before I knew it, it was already my break, I was eager to carry on designing the board so stayed for 10 more minutes. During my break I went to a park down the road which was recommended by Lydia. I found it very peaceful there, so I spent my whole break there eating my lunch. I didn’t really know what to do throughout my break so just found myself walking around a lot. Once I arrived back to the office I carried on with the board before all the Youth Theatre staff gathered in the theatre to plan the session. Before that I once again went down to the resource room with Saja to get lots of props and costumes for the performances (we didn’t end up using them). I was particularly excited for this session as I had a lot of experience working with kids around their age and on top of that I was excited to see their group performances. The session ended at 5:50pm and that was my second day completed. I enjoyed doing these Youth Theatres and alongside connecting with the children and helping them out with their performances.

Day 3 – Wednesday 5 June

It was Wednesday, 12pm and I had arrived at the theatre ready to get to work. I started writing my blog for day 2 and surprisingly I didn’t actually write as much as day 1. After I had finished my blog, I got up to finish the Youth Theatre board which I am particularly pleased with. Whilst I was doing the board, I noticed that there was something wrong with the light right next to me as there were some workings testing it and it also got stuck halfway. After I finished the board there was a food delivery that had arrived, and I helped Lydia load it all onto a trolley before taking it down to the resource room. I got to see the lift by the door in action for the first time which was interesting to see. It was now my break, and I spent my time up in the green room where I just napped for the hour. After my break was over, I met Androulla who introduced herself to me. Today I got to watch a play produced by the Half Moon theatre which had just come back from going on tour. The play was called Ten in the Bed. This was about two children who were refugees but still were able to have fun and look past that. I got to watch it because there was school that came in to see it and helped getting them all into the theatre, so I got to stay and watch it. I particularly enjoyed this performance although it was targeted at younger ages, there were many layers towards the characters and aspects which would be understood by older audiences.

Once the play was finished, I had a meeting with the other people helping out with today’s Youth Theatre, this group was called the Equinox. I liked this because it made me feel really involved with the work. I really enjoyed this session because I got to help out the groups with their performances by helping them form ideas and create storyboards for their pieces and then also getting to see all of their performances as the end which I liked. This session finished at the same time as yesterday’s one. Throughout this Youth Theatre I also felt I connected with the children a lot better compared to with the other groups (probably because, in my opinion, younger ages are – sometimes – easier to work with. I would say I have gotten very familiar with this theatre and could definitely see me working in a place similar to this in the future.

Day 4 – Thursday 6 June

It was my fourth day at Half Moon, and I came in a bit earlier at 10am, when I arrived, I started working on my blog once again. Today was the day that my teacher from my school was coming to visit the theatre and sort of check up on my work experience, Although I didn’t actually know the teacher, I found out that he had actually worked for Half Moon in the past which I found quite fascinating. After the teacher had left, I helped with front of house for a school had come in to watch Ten in the Bed. After the school had all gotten settled in, I went on my lunch break which I spent walking to the nearby park once again. Once I came back, Androulla took me to the upper studio where I watched a performance for a year 5 workshop and helped them out from time to time. I enjoyed this because I hadn’t actually seen a lot of just adults working together on a piece, it was definitely different to watching just children work on a theatre piece. I got the chance to watch the play again but from the lighting deck rather than the seats. I found this especially interesting as I’ve never seen how all of that stuff works. It was interesting to see how there were different queues for different audios and lighting points. After I had finished watching the play I wrote a review of it as I had now seen it two times.

There was still time left until the end of the day, so I had to think of some tasks to get started on. Jackie helped me out and gave me the task to separate Half Moon booklets, and into 4 lots of 30 which were used to hand out to the schools so that each student would get a booklet. Lydia then came back form her break and since I had finished everything that was needed of me, she gave me another harder task which involved cleaning/sorting out the resource room. Although I wasn’t too keen to begin with it actually proved to be oddly satisfying. The room was a complete mess with suitcases and mess all over the floor. So, I plugged my music in and got to work, Although I got no where near to finishing and barely made dent in the room overall, I think made decent progress for the time given. I was so indulged in this activity that I hadn’t realised that it was already the end of the day and Emily had to come down to remind me. Whilst I had been cleaning the resource room, she had been cleaning out the design room which I was very impressed with I the way I remembered it, there was no room to walk around at all. Whereas now there were actual tables and seats that you could sit at. I then said bye and finished my fourth day at half-moon theatre.

Day 5 – 7 June

It was my final day at Half Moon, and I was quite disappointed as I really did enjoy my time doing work experience there. I came in, but instead of working on my blog like I usually do, I went with Chris to help shoot  Ten in the Bed, I was excited to get involved and also leave the office for a while. The first run of shooting lasted 2 and a half hours as there were problems regarding the microphones which caused us to have to pause more times than we’d like. Although we did end up finishing, there was still a second shooting to be done later on. I really liked this activity as I got to meet the actors from Ten in the Bed officially and also got to watch the play once again (third time now) whilst they filmed it. It was also really interesting to watch behind the camera and see the camera people film it. Once the first shooting had finished, it was around 12:30 and I went on my lunch break, I sat out in the garden for a bit whilst I ate my lunch then went up and relaxed in the green room. I only took half an hour of my break because I was eager to get back to the resource room and also, I was kind of bored as I didn’t know what to do other then sit there on my phone etc.

When I went back to the resource room, it looked as if I hadn’t even started the day before, so it looked like even more work to do. But once again I put my music in and started tiding, I done that for about 2 hours and after I had finished, I wasn’t even halfway finished but the progress I had made was still better. I was disappointed that it was my last day as I wouldn’t have been able to see it finished. I went back up to the office to write my blogs for Thursday and Friday and although I did so much in those days I wasn’t even writing as close to how much I wrote on day one (I don’t know how I did it). As a summary of this day, it wasn’t so much of quicker and more tasks but rather longer and less tasks which I enjoy because I can settle and relax a bit more (although I do like the fast-paced task completing from time to time).