Front of House Manager
Circomedia

Yewande A

00:00:02 My name is Yewande A and my job title is front of house manager at Circa Media.  Circomedia is a physical theatre and circus academy, training academy but also we are based in a grade one listed church which is also used for private hires.  My job at Circomedia involves events management mainly, dealing with people who would like to hire the space at Circomedia and I would go on to look after their event which could be anything from a wedding to a private corporate hire, AGM conference.

00:00:42 At school I would say I was quite an average student.  I was involved in the school plays and music club but I would say academically pretty average student.  Sixth Form College was a higher, I really enjoyed that.  I had a fantastic tutor, he really pushed me to go onto university to study theatre and I’m really glad that I did because university was fantastic.  I really enjoyed it.

00:01:09 It was in a beautiful location as well, it was in the middle of the countryside next to a river and, you know, it was a really wonderful and inspiring place to be and to be creative and to learn and the tutors were great, I got along with them really well and they were really inspiring to work with.

00:01:29 After university I didn’t really prepare myself very well for what to do after that, I guess because I’d been studying for so long. So I ended up staying where I was studying for about six months but I wasn’t really finding the opportunities I needed so I moved up to Bristol and then it was again quite a shock to try and find a way into the arts world.

00:01:53 I had my first big opportunity when a position came up at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre and I was PA to the artistic director there which was a huge learning curve and it was really interesting being a PA to somebody and working so closely to them and I found out that it was real challenge and we didn’t get on all that well.  I guess I was quite stressed out but because it was my first job after university, I was quite stubborn and I just kind of put my head down and got on with it.

00:02:29 But unfortunately I did kind of suffer a bit from it as well.  I just felt quite upset by it and I didn’t really have the experience of knowing that this wasn’t the kind of best practice…work practice, really, I think I was just a bit too young but I put up with it, I think, and I just got on with it.  So then the post at Circomedia came up and it wasn’t a step up, it was definitely a sideways step but I think I really needed to get out of The Old Vic because I wasn’t enjoying it.

00:02:59 So, I took the post of receptionist and centre administrator at Circomedia and then I was promoted to front of house manager about 12 months ago.

00:03:10 Outside of work I do like to sing and I do a bit of dancing as well and I’ve used the space as a rehearsal space for my own performing before which is great, it’s really nice to have to be able to do that, to have access to that.  When I look back now I’ve learnt that the bad bits that I’ve gone through were definitely kind of there for a reason because I’ve come out the other side of them knowing more than when I started. So I can’t really say I’d like to change anything because, you know, you learn from your mistakes.

ENDS