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The performing arts industry in an exciting, but extremely competitive one with thousands of people auditioning for only hundreds of jobs. This padlet will look at performing arts as an industry in todays society and how to go about securing these jobs. This padlet will also look at my personal ;performing arts journey as a theatre practitioner and the skills it has given me, what I want t do and where I want to go next and how I plan on achieving those goals.

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Throughout my life I have always dabbled in the performing arts practices and theatre but never really committed a section of my life to the craft until deciding to audition for a performing arts University course at Grimsby university.
At the start of level four I was a completely different person, completely lacking in confidence, experience and knowledge about the industry and the job roles it offers. The university course gave me many opportunities to get up on stage and perform and this alone built up my confidence, not just with performance but in life in general. I was fortunate enough to be a part of the universities amateur production of CHICAGO which was the highlight of the entire journey for me, it was the most work we had undertaken but also the most rewarding thing we had done and it reminded everyone why we signed up. With the university putting on so many shows my confidence was not the only thing to improve but my ability to perform well on stage also improved. Getting the opportunity to consistently rehears pieces of work over and over has increased the level of quality that I can perform. The last skill that my university journey has taught me is how to be and wright more academically, this is something that I have struggled with but have made huge improvements.
To conclude the university experience has not only made me a better performer and more comfortable on stage in front of an audience but it has made me a better person in general day to day life.

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My future plans and how I will achieve them (Short term)

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My future plans and how I will achieve them (Short term)

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Once the final year of the performing arts course has come to an end it will be time to move onto the next chapter and the next journey. For me this is applying for a masters' performing arts course at my chosen university. After looking at several different potential options I decided on the university that I liked the look of the most, that is DE Montfort University of Leicester. This masters degree really caught my eye after doing a bit of research and looking into it. This course offers four main mandatory modules, these are; Performance within companies, Research into performance, Perspective and making a performance. In addition to these key modules there are also a handful of optional ones that you can choose to study alongside the key ones. These include education and the arts, Animated places, Culture studies, Digital media in festivals and events and a few others. This course can be studied full-time in one year or part time in two years. To get on to this course there are a set of entry requirements and tasks that must be completed, this is to be expected when applying for universities. For this course specifically a grade of 2:2 or above in a relative subject is required, so the current performing arts course I am on would be perfect. The other step to securing a place within this course is a successful audition to showcase your skills within industry, this could be either a solo dance piece, song, or monologue (De Montfort University, 2020). In my case I would create a dance piece in a commercial Vogue style as this is something I am very interested in and they encourage people to be themselves and show interest and passion.
Should I be successful and secure a place on the desired course I will also search for part-time work. Finding a part-time job that is suitable to do alongside study will be incredibly advantages to me and my living situation, weather it is bar work or part time work within industry for example front of house.

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My future plans and how I will achieve them (Long term)

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My future plans and how I will achieve them (Long term)

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Should everything go to plan this far I will have graduated from the masters course at De Montfort university. I have thought about what I intend to do at this stage also. After graduating I want to continue in this industry as much as possible and begin looking for work, any and as much work within industry that I can get. This means that I will have to apply and audition for as many jobs and roles as I possible can. This is however not guaranteed to secure work and will need some kind of sustainable income alongside auditioning. Looking for any kind of work for living costs is essential here while searching for industry work, this may be something that I end up doing a lot as a lot of jobs will come from theatre and will only last for the runtime of their shows, so about 6 months depending, this is something that everyone within the industry must consider.
Another long-term plan I have involves following a passion of mine even more so, that is choreography. In the future I want to work on setting up and building a reputation and following as a freelance choreographer. Freelance choreographers essentially create dances and choreography and teach their work to dance schools and teachers or anyone looking for some choreography. This would be an excellent source of income and a chance to work my passion. To reach the stage of selling choreography however may be a long and tedious one but not necessarily a risky one. The first thing I would do is set up and try to expand social media accounts, this is the best way to have your work reach an audience and potential customers. I currently have experience teaching choreography to students in a local dance school but did not charge for this, however they posted our work on their social media and tagged me in it. This is excellent exposure for me and my work and is a good way of building up a following, offering my work for free in the beginning will hopefully result in a reputation.
One final plan I have that is important to me is to help educate people on the performance art within my favourite culture, the LGBT Ballroom culture. Ballroom culture is an underground sub-culture that brings many different people together to celebrate themselves and each other. At these balls many people, mostly drag queens will perform and put on shows in different 'categories'. The term drag refers to the act of dressing up in clothes that are usually worn by the opposite gender and adopting their mannerisms to create a persona. At the core of all the glitz and glamour the main focus of these events are to simply be and celebrate yourself, love and except yourself and others and have fun, all of which I believe society today could use more practice with. I would like to set up and run a community based project and host a Drag ball, in which all people can come and earn about the community and hopefully understand it a little more.

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A picture of the cast that sold out an amateur production of Chicago

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There are a few available funding options to me to help me with any of my future plans and projects that I have.
Firstly, when going to university certain funding is required to fund the course and in addition any living and relocating costs that may be needed. To acquire this funding I will be looking towards Student finance England, a government organisation that helps fund students going to university by proving tuition and maintenance loans. These loans are easy enough to get from student finance once you have secured a place at university. They come in partial payments usually over one year so for example the total cost of the course alone is £8.100, this means that they will pay this directly to the university in three smaller payments to reach the total. They also offer a maintenance loan which will be paid directly to you and can be used for living costs so rent of food and anything that you may need for the course, in this instance performance clothes, books etc. Student Finance have an excellent and realistic repayment system that is comfortable for the students borrowing. They will not start taking their money back until you start earning a comfortable amount of money each year, and then it is only small amount each month which only increase when your salary does.
Another method of funding would be the arts council UK, the arts council UK are a government organisation that fund arts based projects in communities and help maintain art in all different forms so this includes dance, music, theatre, visual arts, museums and more, they take money from the national lottery and public money from the government and invest it into these projects. This means that I could approach the arts council and pitch them my idea of bringing the community together to educate and have fun and if they like it they will fund the project.
Any other funds will come from my own pocket through work weather it be part-time, full-time or freelance.

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A picture of the video a local dance school posted to their social media showcasing the work I did with them!

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In today's society the performing arts industry is an extremally competitive one with so many people auditioning for the handfuls of jobs that are out there. There are several different ways of getting into the industry and different industry jobs out there.
Whenever people think of theatre the first thing that springs to mind is dancing and singing on a stage in front of an audience. While this is a huge parts of theatre there is still a large number of jobs that need to be done that do not require you to even step on stage, not once. An example of this would be a lighting or sound technicians, these people are responsible for all of the special effects that occur during the show and the music and sound effects that play, these people are crucial to the success of any show on stage.
The main sought after job role within the performing arts industry would be the theatre actor. Their job role is to bring to life and embody the character or role that the playwright has created. This includes things like their accent, personality, mannerisms, every single thing about that character they must learn and master to perform. They are usually required to learn scripts and dances also.
Barbara Ruben, a graduate in journalism says that, "The median hourly pay for actors in theatre companies and dinner theatres is £13.83 according to the Bureau of labour statistics, but this varies greatly on the type of theatre, the location" (B. Ruben).

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De Montfort University, 2020 - https://www.dmu.ac.uk/study/courses/postgraduate-courses/performance-practices-ma-degree/performance-practices-ma-degree.aspx?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIzZf3pObI6QIVR5nVCh3LbgzBEAAYASAAEgIvDvD_BwE [Accessed on 16/05/2020]

The Arts Council UK, 2020 - https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/ [Accessed on 17/05/2020]

B. Ruben, 2018 - What Do Theatre Actors Make https://work.chron.com/theater-actors-make-5909.html [Accessed on 17/05/2020]