The Keepers Daughter - Work Experience

On the 19th, 20th and 30th of September 2019 I, alongside other students in my class went to Lowestoft's 'Seagull Theatre' where we worked with a recently formulated theatre company called 'The Keepers Daughter' who were at that time creating their debut piece 'The Hound of The Baskervilles'. We got the amazing opportunity of working alongside them as production assistants, this meant watching the rehearsals and offering our opinion on what the audience might think about specific moments within the piece, we were essentially a test audience.

I decided to participate in this opportunity because I'm interested in Directing and just Theatre Production in general, I wanted to watch how a professional production creates a piece from scratch and then develops it overtime, this was super interesting to see as I got to see that within these types of productions the actors also play a big part in the pieces creation, they often give ideas for what they might do which helps create a theatre piece that they all enjoy.

This placement didn't meet all of my expectations but that doesn't mean that it was a bad experience, I would have preferred if the experience was more hands on and gave us the opportunity to fill in a specific role within the theatre production but that wasn't the case, there was a lot of sitting and watching. I did really enjoy going in and around the theatre and seeing it's history as well as looking at the different departments.

• I've learnt that there as loads of roles within a theatre company that have to work in harmony for the piece to be presented well to it's audience. 
• I've learnt that the theatre production process can be very long and repetitive but that's all for a reason, practice makes perfect. 
• I've learnt that a director doesn't always take full control of the piece, they rely on their crew to help create the piece. 

From all of this experience I feel as though I have a deeper understanding and appreciation for theatre performances as I see just how much work and effort is needed to create a good performance.