Oral Histories

When I was still a student at Central, Polka used to look for people to help with their fit ups. Fit up is when you get ready for a show. So I got dragged along by a friend and came into this theatre for children, which was really quite unusual, because you walk in and all the chairs are at children’s heights. Even the toilets are at children’s heights. That was sort of a strange environment, but it was filled with really, really nice people. Being used to adult theatre it was a little bit strange. Even working then and there it still felt a bit weird, but it is not until there are actual children in the building that you go “Ahh. I get it. It’s not for me. This is solely for them”. Then when you look at it through a child’s eyes then you just go “yeah, OK. I understand this place. It is what it says it is.” Inviting. Yeah a friendly place and it was just a nice atmosphere to work in, just very friendly, very warming, very welcoming of people. So that was my first experience of Polka. It’s moved and grown with the times, but it’s still kept that same sort of ethos and through different permutations of different Artistic Directors and staff and stuff they still tried to keep that core essence. We did a version of James and the Giant Peach. It makes me smile just thinking about the experience from the rehearsals to the cast, the final show and audience reaction to that. That made me warm. Sometimes just the journey of making a show has been for me more important than the show. Or memorable shows, because of the audiences’ reactions and I think that is more memorable than things we have put on in the past. And to see kids smiling, singing songs from the shows that went on was just “OK this is why I do it. This is why I like working in this place”. As a theatre-goer myself I have been to see shows that I don’t like, but went into the bar in the interval, thought about it and had paid quite a bit of money so sat through the second half. I only walked out of a show once. If your audience doesn’t like it as a child you know about it, because they are quite bold in saying “I don’t like it. Get me out!” So there is instant feedback – good or bad. You just have to be more aware that it’s not an adult so maybe the type of words you are using are slightly simplified, but other than that the process and the practice is actually the same. The job that I do has times when it’s really really hard, really really mentally tiring, but it never ever felt like work. It’s always been a joy to be there, through audience reactions through to just the type of people I got to work with. Yeah, it was an honour. In the Stage Management or Production Department as a whole there’s a Production Manager, who was above me and dealt with the budgets and the overall running of our department. I am the Stage Manager. Below me I might have had an Assistant Stage Manager and a Deputy Stage Manager. The Assistant Stage Manager could be getting things, which we call props, which are things that you see the actors have on stage and also working backstage when the show is happening. The Deputy Stage Manager is one that will generally sit in a rehearsal and take notes and give those notes to the relevant departments and then deals with the overall running of a show. And me as the Stage Manager is responsible for all of those, but at Polka Theatre which I loved, I got to do all those roles as the roles were rotated so that I wasn’t always just the Stage Manager. Sometimes I was an ASM and sometimes I was a DSM, which allowed me to do things I liked to do, which again I couldn’t get anywhere else. What makes me really excited about theatre isn’t the actual show. It’s the process before the show and solving problems before we get the show on the stage so that is the hardest part so that’s in rehearsals around three and half weeks working long hours, then getting the show on the stage for the first time in what we call our Technical period when the actors are on the stage for the first time. We get lights and sound on the stage for the first time and you are working for a long twelve hour day with the technical team and performers and you’re just getting each bit by bit trying to work out where all the cues are going to be going and when they are all going to be happening. That’s the hardest part, but for me the most rewarding. If you want to work around nice people come and join the theatre world. With anybody or anything it’s just the people that you’re contacting, the people who have been inspired by the place where I worked. The whole lot. Yeah, it’s a rewarding place to be. The whole experience of working in Polka as a Stage Manager and as one who got to experience Polka Theatre it is a theatre for children. It gives you so many rewards that were unexpected and felt like such a family venue and a family...oh it’s very hard to describe... but it’s like the building had a soul and the soul was warm. That’s all I can say really. It’s a place with a soul.