A warm hello to you all!
My name is Magdalena and I‘m a German student who‘s been doing an internship at Creation since August. Sadly, my stay here comes to an end now – so it might be a good time to reflect what‘s happened during these eventful months I spent with Creation. My study programme in Germany includes a practical semester and since I hope to work in the field of theatre in the future, I wanted to gain more experience during this time.
I arrived at the end of the run of Alice in the University Parks – this was thefirst Creation show I ever saw and I really loved it. I was able to gain an insight into Front of House by helping out at the show, e.g. offering print to the audience members at the end of the show or making the tent look neat again after performances. I remember all the people I met, be it audience members, the cast or the Creation office team, as extremely lovely and welcoming.
After the end of the run, we spent more time in the office. For me, the specifically remarkable thing about the Creation team is the corporate culture. At Creation, there is a very relaxed work atmosphere so I felt very comfortable when in the office as well as anywhere else. It was wonderful to belong to a team where everybody is friends and has a lot of fun while getting amazing work done and being a part of it despite ‘just’ being an intern.
At the end of August we had another show on, Playing the King at The Manor. I did some costume work for this show which was a lot of fun as well as helping out at the show. What I also enjoyed during my whole time at Creation was the variety of tasks that I just described; I got to do a broad range of different things and got to know different departments. When in the office, I undertook a variety of tasks, including marketing and general administration. I also gained an insight into Creation’s Education work, by accompanying Jess to Drama Clubs and assisting at a Holiday Workshop. This was a lot of fun, and it’s great to see children get creative in theatre.
In September, we had a one-off show in Banbury, Much Ado About Muffins. At this show, I had probably the most unusual job during my whole internship: I actually got to be a part of the show by playing a cat, complete with a full-body costume and a massive cat head. This was a really exciting and fun experience – especially since I have done some amateur acting in the past and enjoy it a lot.
Christmas arrived very quickly! This time, I was able to see the process of how a show was developed rather than ‘just’ seeing the result, from being at the show’s first read-through to prop-making. At the shows themselves I was around a lot, supporting the Front of House team by helping with tasks like seating. What was very valuable for me was when audience members at the end told me how much they enjoyed the show, especially children.
I think it is great that Creation achieves to raise an interest or appreciation in theatre and classic texts amongst the younger audience members. Sadly, this show’s run is over now too, but I’m sure there are many more wonderful shows yet to come of which I’ll hopefully be able to see some too.
To conclude, my time at Creation was bonkers (a word that I learned here very quickly and that quite often applies to Creation), varied, busy, exciting, funny and overall enjoyable!
Wishing you a lot of wonderful future Creation show visits,
Magdalena
