Web Content Editor
Leeds Grand Theatre

Debbie W

00:00:03 My name’s Debbie W, and my job title is Web Content Editor. My main job is editing the website, where I get to choose the images and the copy that we use. I also work in marketing for advertising purposes, and I also assist the Box Office Manager.

00:00:23 I remember my first day working here. I didn’t know what I was doing, and it was Bottom, live, with Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson, so that was really exciting for a 16 year-old. And I remember I hung around at Stage Door afterwards for about 50 minutes, convinced that Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson would still be in their dressing room, and I’d get to meet them. Only they’d been gone like an hour, and I sat there like an idiot. So I do remember my first day.

00:00:50 The other roles I’ve done within the theatre have been – I started front of house, the day after my sixteenth birthday so – I was still at school. I did ticketing checking. Attending – so selling ice creams. Worked in the bar, once I was old enough. I’ve worked on Stage Door, and I’ve worked in the Box Office. And then I was promoted to marketing, and then a couple of years ago the website was added to that as well.

00:01:17 I started acting when I was 6 and it – that was just my entire life when I was young, that’s all I ever wanted to do really, it’s all I ever wanted to work in, because I was a real show off. It was a Godsend when I realised there was an outlet for it, that I didn’t just have to drive everybody mental at home. And I could go somewhere where not only was that allowed but it was encouraged, and they teach you how to be better at it.

00:01:45 My parents were really interested in hard work, so the fact that I was passionate about something, and I really would put the effort and the time in, I think my parents were pleased that they’d found something that I wasn’t just gonna do half-heartedly, you know. Everything else at school was – I just got away with the bare minimum.

00:02:08 When I left college I decided that acting really wasn’t for me, when I was 1. I lost one of my parents when I was 17, and I spent a lot of time not really being focused on anything at all. And then when I came through the grieving process, I think I’d changed and I just – the idea of putting a hundred percent into my career or my, you know, career to be, just wasn’t that desirable anymore, because I wanted to – I wanted to be around my family and my friends. It didn’t feel as fun anymore, and it just – just wasn’t me anymore, I think. I think it changed me a lot, as I suppose it does for a lot of people.

00:02:54 I thought perhaps I’d changed, I thought perhaps – well maybe I’ll get a bit older and then I will go to Drama School and I will – I will pursue it. But the – the drive’s just never come back. I – it obviously bit me really early, and then it left me before I ever really, you know, got to use it, if that makes sense.

00:03:13 Biggest influence on my life? I think my Nan. She had nothing to do with theatre, but she was just an incredible woman. And she was really fiercely independent, and ran her own business at a time when women really didn’t run their own business, you know. Without really trying, without being forceful, she was just a massive inspiration, and really made me know, from a young age, that you can achieve anything you want to achieve at all.

00:03:43 I don’t think I am particularly ambitious. I work to live. I just need to earn money in order to have a great life outside of work, that’s all it is. And if I can enjoy myself while I’m here, then that’s great. I don’t know if I’ll keep going but, you know, thirteen years on, I’m still here. I think maybe General Manager in 13 years, I don’t know.

00:04:03 ENDS