Hello our names are Holly Curran and Annie Baskerfield-Bride and we’re students at Greenhead College in Huddersfield.

Holly (with Dark Horse wristband)

Annie (with Dark Horse wristband, naturally)

We feel that we were really lucky to get a work placement with Dark Horse.  This theatre company is really prestigious and to be a part of a company that nationally tours and produces new plays, even if it was just for a week, was absolutely amazing.   This theatre company works with the best creatives and actors in the UK.  Dark Horse also trains actors with learning disabilities to drama school standard and the work that they do is integrated- which means people without disabilities work with people with learning disabilities in their productions.  

There’s a real energy and positivity that comes off 

the whole team and everyone who works there seems really inspired.

The week began with an induction into the company and the work that it does, all the processes and systems that are in place when you work for a company.  We had a tour of the offices and the rehearsal room next door which Dark Horse uses for it’s actor training and production rehearsals and learned about keys and buzzers and signing in.   Then we learned about who does what and had a chat about their jobs.  It is a small team at Dark Horse-  we spoke with Vanessa ‘the art’ Brooks first. 

Vanessa with the ‘big mac’ which she uses to design
marketing materials and edit film

 In this photograph she is trying hard not to be seen!  She is the artistic director and she writes and directs all the productions and actor training syllabuses and thinks about the future shape and artistic strategy, mission and policy for the company. We discussed I LOVE YOU BABY, the company’s next national tour and she told us the plot and the characters and how she sees the production being in the end- amazing to hear all of this from a playwright before the shows even been written.  It sounds absolutely fantastic- a really exciting new hi tech thriller drama-  and we had a conversation about what will appeal to people of our age- and there’s lots.  We also discussed the method used in the rehearsal room and the silent approach- completely unique to Dark Horse and fascinating.  Vanessa says that Dark Horse is fighting hard for equal working opportunities for people with learning disabilities in the world of acting so that stories we enjoy watching can be more representative of the world and all of the people in it. Looking at the training of the actors- which we’ll come to later-  you can see why the company is so highly rated.

Lynda doing some money based activity! 

 Lynda ‘the money’ Hornsby is the business director and she’s responsible for all the financial side of things and has to think a lot about funding and where the money’s going to come from to do the work!  Dark Horse is an arts council national portfolio organisation and is also funded by the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation and Lloyds TSB among others and a period of writing reports and doing budgets for all the funders had just finished- there’s an awful lot that goes on behind the scenes to make the art work. Lynda gave us a detailed account of this side of the business.

Paul sorts some things out (also with wristband)

Paul ‘the sorter’ Myatt is the administrator and he works four days a week and picks up all the bits and pieces that need doing to make things go smoothly.  His desk is full of all sorts of (neat) bits of paper and he has to jump from one thing to another very quickly during the course of a day.

We did a lot of work during the week on marketing strategy for I LOVE YOU BABY, thinking about copy (the words you use in publicity) for people of our age and also about a social media campaign- we hope what we came up with is useful and will certainly urge our friends to come along to the show and also ‘like' the company on facebook and ‘follow' them on twitter.

We were privileged to observe two rehearsals during the course of the week.  We increased our knowledge of how Dark Horse works and were really interested in how intricate the work is, how props are used and how much of the work takes place absolutely silently- it’s great to watch. We watched Vanessa direct and it was wonderful to witness her communication with the ensemble-  even while working in the office we were able to hear the music that was used all day long in the rehearsal room and it was as if the whole office was involved in the work (which it is of course) and it lifted the atmosphere.

We would like to thank everyone at Dark Horse  for welcoming  us and having us do our work experience here- it’s a week we’ll never forget….And don’t forget to book early for I LOVE YOU BABY- and check out the trailer film on the dark horse website (www.darkhorsetheatre.co.uk) you don’t want to miss it!