Last week, I interviewed Skills Centre Manager at the National Theatre Carmel Macaree about The National Theatre’s Young Technicians programme in partnership with HOME in Manchester. The programme is an opportunity for young people aged 13-19 to get involved with the technical aspects of theatre, involving digital and in-person workshops.
Key highlights of the course:
- It’s completely FREE!
- It’s a hybrid course, so you can take part online even if you are not based in the partner areas!
- They would really love more applications from underrepresented groups in technical theatre! So if you are a young person who is any of the following: Female, trans, non-binary, global majority, working class background, D/deaf or disabled – don’t hesitate to sign up!
- There is no prior experience needed, just a passion in theatre!
Now onto the interview!
Tell me a bit about the Young Technicians programme
Young technicians is a free technical training programme for 13-19 year olds who are interested in lighting, sound and stage. So it means that people have the chance to have that free training, figure out what they like doing, but also have the chance to work with industry professionals – lighting, sound, stage, automation, rigging technicians – and learn from them first-hand. So we act as a conduit for them to be able to work with those people.
During Covid we did a digital version of the course to see if we could spread the reach but we found that the best way to do this would be to work in partnership with different organisations.
Who did you partner with?
Nottingham Playhouse, HOME Manchester and Theatre Royal Plymouth.
We begin with our online course and then partner with them to take the people from Manchester who have done the online course to do in person practical training at HOME Manchester. So they then get to put their learning into context and do some work experience at the National Theatre Connections Festival (one of the National Theatre’s longest running programmes).
Connections is a youth theatre festival for 13-19 year olds with new plays commissioned by acclaimed writers, specifically to represent young voices. Each company that takes part, they perform a play at their home venue and then can do it at a professional theatre. One of each of those plays is then played at the National Theatre in around June time. This means that you get to hear all these different voices from around the country performing these plays written for young voices. It’s a celebration of the power of youth theatre.
So is peer to peer work a big part of the process with National Theatre Connections?
I think collaboration is a huge part of theatre. Being able to collaborate and work with other people so even if you don’t understand someone’s role, making space to understand their process is so important. I think it means that we can work to make sure that people aren’t just getting blinkered like ‘this is my part of the process, this is the only bit that I tune into’ because you need to make sure you are working as part of a team.
What are the benefits are of the young technicians programme becoming a Nationwide initiative rather than staying at its previous home in Southbank, London?
There is an aim from the national theatre to reach every young person in the UK before they leave school. We have a lot of ambition to scale up the work we do to inspire creativity, open doors for employment and also spark imagination that there are all these different careers that have transferable skills. So if you do physics you can use those skills to programme a lighting desk, or if you like carpentry you can use those skills to build sets or make models. So it’s also to widen this lens.
The importance for me, in terms of nationwide working, is that people don’t think its just in London or other big cities. With working with HOME in Manchester, which is a receiving theatre, it receives big musicals and touring plays and is also a cinema venue and visual arts space. To open all this up to young people interested in the technical elements shows that there are all these other arts spaces with transferable skills. You can learn to rig lights and also set up an exhibition space, or project films in cinema. It means they can see this intersection.
In terms of arts education, a study by the DCMS revealed there’s been a 42% decline in people taking GCSEs in Arts Subjects and that there is a nationwide skills shortage. In Covid, people who had these specialisms in lighting, sound, engineering, automation had to retrain and make their skills transferable. This means a large part of the workforce is not represented anymore, as a lot of other industries have gained skills from wonderful theatre technicians. We are trying to make sure that by working in partnership we are providing arts-rich education. In Manchester specifically, Sam from HOME has been looking at specific communities like Moston and Whalley Range to partner with. It’s a chance to make sure that as an industry we are being inclusive.
We also make sure that people who are female, non-binary, trans get involved – because the female representation backstage is quite low. It’s quite a male dominated industry, and we want to open these spaces up. Also young people from the global majority, giving them access and making them feel as if they are not the only person in the space who is separate to that. We want to make sure people know it can be an inclusive environment to work in.
For those demographics you want to bring in, what is in place to reduce any barriers that the young people might face?
We work from a ‘clear is kind’ perspective. If you don’t give people clear parameters for how you are going to engage, they won’t participate in their best way. In terms of access, we create a visual guide that we send out to absolutely everyone, we don’t just give it to people who have asked for it. We make sure everyone has all the information, and knows that they can ask for extra support if they need it!
As part of our online course, we make sure everyone involved has their names and pronouns in their title on zoom. – which I know doesn’t sound like a big thing, but we make sure we are talking about visibility and representation. We also make sure we have a diverse range of mentors – so we have had loads of non-binary mentors in the past – and it helps the young people see ‘oh there’s people in that environment like me!’. We try to make sure we are as open as possible, because theatre is such an open place where people can express ideas!
Representation is really important and also, that openness around conversation. We’ve had young people who are based from the top of Newcastle to the Isle of Wight so people will have completely different politics to deal with in their local community. So for some of them it might be the only time they are able to meet people who are interested in the same things as them!
Could you tell me a bit more about the hybrid programme structure?
Yes, the sessions will take place on Tuesday nights from February onwards, online for 2 hours. These are on loads of different topics each week, such as lighting, where we show them how to use light in angles. As part of the course, we send everyone a kit box, so they have some lighting gels or a circuit or headphones. So they are able to practically learn as they are doing sessions. It starts with our tech teams talking about things, demonstrating and discussing how things are done in a wider theatre context.
We then have freelance technical mentors – who place them in breakout rooms to discuss different equations to see if power is safe or to imagine the lighting of scenes! So it means they have a chance to learn as a big group but also go into smaller rooms with their mentors to really digest and discuss.
There are 11 online sessions, with 3 in each main specialism (stages, lighting, and sound) and an introduction week so they can meet each other and also so we can explain all the online tools. Then we do an evaluation at the end to check how people have found the course and any feedback that would be good for the course in future years.
Now, the in person session in Manchester are at HOME Theatre on 16th and 17th of April. So they will take the content from online and the HOME teams run technical workshops so they can be hands on doing things like, programming a lighting desk and operating sound on Qlab.
They also get the opportunity to support and shadow the technicians for a day of the National Theatre Connections Festival. They usually see two productions, and its a really great opportunity to see different interpretations of plays because there is such a wide variety of new writing there! Its great for them to see what happens in that environment and how technicians feed back and interact with creative teams!
And Connections doesn’t just happen at HOME in Manchester, it is nationwide at loads of venues across the UK like: The Lowry (Salford), Theatre Royal (York), Beacon Arts Centre (Inverclyde) and The Lyric (Belfast). We really want to make sure young people don’t feel theatre is a far away thing. We hire freelancers from all around and specifically place Manchester-based freelancers with the Manchester group so they can understand theatre around their area.
This is the second year Young Technicians is running at HOME – what have you learnt from Pilot at HOME last year?
Well firstly It’s great to see that the young people we engaged with are still involved with HOME and seeking further training.
Two of the young people from Nottingham have become apprentices at the venue. So there is a really clear progression, and this has opened up a career pathway for them. It’s really great to be able to give them that clear pathway.
But for us it’s a lot about joining up planning more, based on the feedback from last year. As part of the course we made a course handbook for access and education retention. They can see the key terms and glossary and diagram, so it doesn’t feel like they have to hold on to all the information. And it hopefully helps prompt them in the future and allows them to staircase up their skillset.
Something the teams did last year, that we are going to bring in is a nice group meeting before the in person session. So they all could meet in advance of the workshop, and be able to meet as people rather than co-workers. For a lot of the young people it’s so nice to meet someone who’s as excited about technical theatre as them, because a lot of the time they will be the only person from their school or community hall who did all the tech. It’s nice to see them build a little community.
How many people are on the programme this year?
We have 50 places nationwide. We have 10 focus places for Manchester 10 in Nottingham, 10 in Plymouth, and 20 nationwide places that are only online. This means you can even do the programme if you don’t live in these areas.
Do you have any advice for young people applying to this programme? Or any advice for budding young technicians in general?
If you are interested in it – find out where you can access it! Figure out how people do what you want to do. Asking questions is always amazing, I encourage everyone to ask ‘what if’ questions and seek out opportunities even if it is something you never thought you’d do!
There are lots of websites and apps geared towards creative careers, like the Eric app (which is like Instagram for the arts) Get into theatre, and even on our National Theatre youtube we have a series called “how we made it” showing the behind the scenes of some of our productions. It shows people that there is so much more that can be done behind the scenes. So yeah its always great to explore different opportunities and find gateways in.
Do you have any final thoughts that you want people to know?
It’s a great way that people can invest in skill and education. And it’s free! If I didn’t say that before, it’s free. I think being able to collaborate nationwide has been so important, because everyone is coming at theatre and performance from such a different angle. So its been so great to be able to work in partnership and have all those different perspectives to join together and look how we can better support young people and our industry for the future. Its been a joy to work with HOME and I can’t wait to kickstart this year!
