Gail McIntyre Interview

On 19^th April, we had the opportunity to speak to an actual T.I.E director from the West Yorkshire Playhouse.  This obviously is an amazing treat as this director, Gail, works day in day out on creating pieces of educational theatre for a range of age groups on a wide variety of topics.  Gail came with Jessica Farmer whom we met previously and have interviewed and also at the Offstage Choices day last year (Link to Jessica Farmer Interview, Link to Offstage Choices Review).

I wasn’t sure at first what Gail did within the complicated process of making a piece on TIE but I was to find out shortly.

We all gathered in the conference room as this was a more appropriate setting for an interview than that of the drama studio.  Gail first mentioned a couple of projects that she had worked on that were coming up in the theatre soon.  She mentioned the production ‘No Mans Land’ which will be running from the 29^th April to 7^th May and also she mentioned a co-worker Lem who has a one man show coming up which has been reported as being brilliant.  I hope that we can arrange within the group to go see one or even both of these productions as this would be enjoyable as well as helpful.

First, Gail explained what her job was and what it entailed.  She is an Associate Director of West Yorkshire Playhouse and is constantly planning, programming and delivering work for schools.  She works with musicians, actors, playwrights, physical theatre practitioners and a lot more people.  Each piece they create is aimed at a specific different age group but this is subject to change as she receives feedback from teachers all the time whether the age group they performed it to be right and whether it should change.  She also helps direct the annual Christmas production at the West Yorkshire Playhouse.  All the work is for young people, both touring and in the theatre.  Gail is passionate for it but her job is becoming increasingly more difficult as funding is decreasing.  She finds touring more exciting and challenging as you are performing to people who wouldn’t usually come to the theatre so you introduce drama to people who wouldn’t usually either voluntarily go and see it or don’t have the opportunities to go.  She is adapting a book into a piece of theatre by working with a poet.  The art is not to loose his skill as a poet when adapting it into a script but stay true to the authors story and style. 

We then asked Gail some of the questions we had thought of in preparation for meeting her.

Do you enjoy your job?

“Yes, it is exciting and challenging to try and create a good piece that will challenge and inspire.  Different things happen when you work with different people who all have different skills”.

Is there anything you’ve ever worked on where you’ve thought ‘please let it be over’?

“No but there have things I’ve worked on where the combination of people has been difficult.  You have to have your own point of view but embrace everyone else’s and recognise your strengths and weaknesses as well as everybody else’s”.

Are there any age groups that are more difficult than others?

“No, they’re just different.  You just have to find the thing that inspires and engages them.  The process of feedback is constant; you have to talk to as many people as you can”.

Is there a hierarchy for roles?

“Whatever happens, I am responsible, even if it was the team.  We are led by a different creative artist at one time like the writer, then the director and so on.  I choose who leads certain part such as I will ask a specific person who I think has the right experience to do a certain thing such as a certain monologue or scene.  I make the final decision as to whether or not we actually tour the piece in schools.  Everybody gets the credit if it’s a success but if anything goes wrong, I get all the blame”.

Do you use song and music?

“Yes, we use it for allsorts.  The latest piece has live pieces and a composer has created an emotional journey.  In ‘The Worm Collector’, there was an underscore to clarify the setting with the limited set.  The composer sits in on the rehearsals and composes bits as he goes along.  In a different production, the composer improvised throughout the whole performance”.

How do you connect with different communities and audiences?

“The use of forum theatre is a great way to include audience participation and sometimes, some of the actors are in the audience for example, in ‘The Snow Queen’, some of the actors playing robbers were in the audience and actually started robbing some of the audience members.  I love involvement of the audience as they are working with the character and they have a voice.  There is an ongoing discussion on how to get people into the theatre.  Because I go into schools, I am already promoting and encouraging people to come into the theatre that way.  There is also an audience engagement officer in the marketing team whose job it is to fill seats”.

How long does it take to make a piece of Theatre In Education from scratch?

“The latest project that is about to be perfomed at the West Yorkshire Playhouse was commissioned in 2008.  The writers had 9 months to a year to write it.  It varies.  We plan 2 years ahead: we have allsorts going on at the same time.  Then you have a few months of designers looking at the focus of the piece and what you want to people to see.  We have a 3 or 4 week rehearsal process but it depends on who you’re working with and whether or not there is a workshop attached.  Allsorts of things are happening during this time including booking the tour and publicity”.

What topics do you cover?

“It’s not just down to us what topics we do, it depends on what we get funded to do for example, I really want to do a piece on child carers but we only got the money to do a piece on knife crime”.

Where does the funding come from?

“We get some of it from Education Leeds but at the end of the year, that will end.  We also get funded through the West Yorkshire Playhouse through the Arts Council.  Outside businesses such as The Royal Armories and The Home Office give money to cover certain topics.  You just have to go out and get it, like a pitch”.

You mentioned that you an actor do you ever direct yourself?

“No I never do that.  Sometimes, when people direct and act, they find it hard to separate and see the other actors from an actors point of view”.

Do you ever go to other Theatre In Education companies for inspiration?

“We go see lots of work fro inspiration.  There are never any new ideas, just what you do with them”.

We thanked Gail and Jessica for their time and they gave out some leaflets about the trilogy of monologues that make up one big piece of Theatre In Education about knife crime.  Gail asked when our pieces were going to be performed and whether she could come and see them.  We were all stunned.  An actual Theatre In Education director wanted to come and see our pieces!  We thanked her very much and said it would be greatly appreciated it and that we would be in touch to confirm the dates of the performances.

It was a great opportunity to meet a director, especially as a couple of people in the group are considering taking that sort of career path.  Miss Woffinden informed us that she had been in touch with a lot of people asking for an hour of their time and some of them didn’t respond and the others said they would charge us so it was really kind of Gail to come and talk to us.