Author Archive

Discovering The Play House

In November 2007 I attended an interview for the role of Administrator with The Play House. Most of the day seems like a blur to me now but the one thing that resonates from the day was the atmosphere. Rochi, the Administrator at the time, told me that it was a lovely place to work for and was genuinely complimentary of the team who worked here. After attending a number of disheartening interviews prior to this (including one where they told me I would need to eat any snacks before lunch in the toilet!) it was extremely refreshing to find somewhere that immediately had a positive and friendly buzz, and the fact that I could openly feed my crisp habit was a deal breaker!

The world of theatre-in-education was completely new to me when I first started and having been here for over a year I am still enthralled with the creative processes that go into the devising of a programme and the enjoyment on the faces of the children (and teachers) receiving them. Why didn’t I ever have something like this when I was in school, I mean, it’s hard to get excited about a visit from the nit nurse, right?

The great thing about working here is that you never know what’s going to happen next. One of my favourite memories was when I was having a particularly bad day and I was walking passed the studio on my way to collect the post when I could hear the excitable screams from a group of children. I glanced in and saw that there was a performance of one of our Early Years programmes called Roll Up! Roll Up! that I had yet to see. I witnessed a ring of children each clutching an end of a large circular piece of fabric awaiting the amazing Bambino Trampolino who was about to demonstrate his trampolining skills.

I have to point out that Bambino Trampolino was a teddy bear whose act consisted of being placed into the centre of the make shift trampoline, before being repeatedly hoisted into the air by the children’s movement of the fabric. The experience immediately lifted my mood and I returned to the office smiling.

I will never tire of the wonderfully random things I see. In fact I am enjoying my time here so much that if I ever feel the need to move on, I just know that I will tell the next bunch of fresh faced candidates how lovely it is to work here and will be genuinely complimentary of the team.