Recruiting for the theatre's backstage roles as pandemic continues to bite

“It’s pretty much everything” says Chichester Festival Theatre creative associate Sophie Hobson. But it's something the Festival Theatre is determined to do something about. On March 18, Chichester Festival Theatre is running an online event to help people find out about backstage careers and apprenticeships in the industry and gain an insight into what happens in theatre production. It’s part of the BBC’s Bring The Drama Festival which is running until March 31 and is aimed at people who want to learn about craft skills in theatre, film and TV such as set design, costume making or lighting and sound.

There’s been a skills shortage in these areas since lockdown and the festival is hoping to encourage people back into the industry. Chichester is playing its part with a special webinar which is free to sign up for, starting at 4pm on March 18. Go to https://www.cft.org.uk/offstage/cft-backstage-careers. On the panel sharing their career experiences will be CFT's technical director Sam Garner-Gibbons; apprenticeship coordinator Sally Garner-Gibbons; CFYT alumnus and winner of the John Hyland Award Henry Reeder; and events and projects coordinator Angela Buckley. Sophie will be hosting the session. There will be a 45-minute discussion followed by a 15-minute Q&A.

“We lost a lot of people in these sorts of roles during the pandemic to other careers and to other parts of the industry. These people were going to other opportunities for work where work was maybe still continuing in a limited way like film and TV. And many people have stayed there and just never come back.”

And inevitably that brings problems for theatres: “With the CFT, six months of the year, we are a producing house and for six months we are a receiving house. We are just coming into the CFT season (with the CFT’s home-produced productions) and we are putting out a big call to get all those people in the theatre that we need to be able to make the shows happen. But we're finding it really difficult to find these people. We're having to widen the search. Before it was all much more close in terms of where they came from, maybe a 60-mile radius but now we're having to look nationally. We are also having to shift the job description. Some people think they have the skills but they don't actually have the skills that we will need them to have.

“I think it's a twofold problem. Some of the people who were in these roles found other roles were better paid and that they had better opportunities where they were now were but it's also the talent pipeline. It is about how these careers are perceived in schools and colleges. Some of them are not necessarily seen as safe careers that schools and colleges would naturally steer people towards.”