April 5, 2014, by Eve
Hard-Headed Journalist
Today I was a hard-headed (or is it hot-head?) journalist. I had an appointment at the Playhouse to interview the artistic director about the county council cuts for an upcoming Impact article. And so I went armed with recording device, notebook and coffee: the three wise-men necessities of the journalistic world.
I believe this was my second face to face interview. Mostly, I end up doing them on the phone or via email – which is so much easier for when you have limited word space. Interviews are strange – they are like formulised conversation; scripted dialogue which you write as you go along. At least he was friendly and eager to make a coherent script (unlike my first, highly fragmental interviewee). His friendliness made me feel bad – surely interviewers are supposed to be tough, 
pushy and ready to battle out the conversation: or maybe I’ve just been listening to too many interviews with politicians. The artistic interviewees seem much nicer.
I just hope I spoke alright. Interviewers are supposed to have calm, measured voices – I did a lot of ‘err’ and ‘yeah…’. He was much more coherent and clear and he didn’t even have notes! But I guess he’s probably done more interviews than me…
Well, I won’t tell you what he said – you’ll have to wait and read the article in the next issue.
After the interview he offered to show me round the Playhouse; give me the tour I should have had at the beginning of last term when I started my placement there.
I never realised there were so many secret ins and outs at the Playhouse; up those stairs and down that corridor then down a twisting, iron staircase and you ended up looking at somewhere quite familiar but from a completely different angle.
We started on the circle – which I have never actually been seated in, I always end up in the first couple of rows (oh the woes of being a reviewer!)– the circle is extremely high- I understand why the seats are cheaper.
Then we went on the stage! Which was – there are no other words for it – pretty darn cool. He pressed a button and the iron curtain slowly rose to reveal the empty auditorium. With hindsight (oh that sweet, GCSE history word), I felt I should have recited some Shakespeare or something equally classical, but all I could think of at the time was a song from ‘The Producers’ which probably wouldn’t have had the same affect.
We saw a couple of people building bits of set, in the workshop off the wings; the props workshop which had a number of freaky puppets and a large, furry cow’s head stuck on the wall; we even saw the dressing rooms and looked inside one – which, sadly, was a bit disappointing as there were no Broadway lights framing the mirror.
But it was a pretty cool tour – I felt like a bit of a theatre fan girl; getting excited about seeing the green, sparkly wardrobe from ‘My Judy Garland Life’!
Two rather different poses, both in the space of an hour; the journalist and the fan girl. My lack of consistency would certainly please Mr Wilde. An hour is not well spent unless I have assumed the guise of at least two personalities!
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