It’s the start if my last term at Bristol University, and time to be making big decisions about the upcoming year. Over Easter I have been working on my two industry placements – spending daytimes at the Mayfest office working with the producing and marketing teams for the festival, and heading down to the Tobacco Factory in the evenings to be an acting-ASM (assistant stage manager) for their current production of ‘The School for Scandal’. This involves helping out backstage, doing the scene changes and looking after the props, all while in an extravagant C18th costume – a very new experience for me!
Last term was jam-packed with rehearsals for Studiospace’s biggest show of the year, ‘Love and Information’ by Caryl Churchill, which I directed. The whole process was thoroughly enjoyable; taking 49 entirely unrelated scenes, devoid of stage directions or character names, and bringing them to life with choreography and story-telling was extremely challenging but produced a wonderful result. I am indebted to our highly talented cast who multi-rolled around 8 characters each, and our huge production team for providing hundreds of costumes, beautiful lighting, sound and projection, and a fantastically original set. It was the most amazing experience, and we received lots of lovely feedback from academic staff and students alike. I’m lucky enough to be in contact with Churchill herself and to be off to London to meet her in June!
The next couple of weeks I’ll be knuckling down to academic work as my final essays are due in, and I’ll be enjoying my last ever English lectures. I’ll continue to work at the Tobacco Factory until early May, and then entirely with Mayfest until the festival (14th- 24th May) is over. After that I have no set plans until graduation, which is a scary thought! Next year I’m hoping to stay in Bristol to pursue a career in theatre, and to continue revelling in this beautiful, vibrant city. There’s nowhere quite like it, and after three years it is undoubtedly the place I call home.
Charlie 
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