This Easter week, Sheffield Theatres is taking audiences on an action-packed adventure as Bristol Old Vic’s hit musical Swallows and Amazons sails into the Lyceum Theatre from Tuesday 10 to Saturday 14 April.

A stage adaptation of the much-loved book by Arthur Ransome, Swallows and Amazons tells the story of the school holiday exploits of the Walker and Blackett children and their sailing boats – the Swallow and the Amazon. As the crews set sail for Wildcat Island, they encounter savages, capture dastardly pirates and defeat mortal enemies.

The production has already premiered at the Bristol Old Vic and been resident in the West End before embarking on its new spring 2012 tour of the UK and is the perfect way to remember the long-lost days of endless summer evenings playing with friends and getting lost in an imaginary world.

Directed by Tom Morris, Artistic Director of Bristol Old Vic and co-director of the National Theatre’s Tony Award-winning War Horse, and featuring songs by The Divine Comedy’s Neil Hannon.

Tickets are on sale now, priced from £10.50 – £19.50 and can be bought by calling the Box Office on 0114 249 6000 or online at sheffieldtheatres.co.uk.

Performances nightly at 7.00pm, and 2.00pm matinees on Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday.

Jump aboard for Easter adventures!

An actress I’ve recently been working with has been regaling me with some wonderful tales of a lifetime in theatre. Hers is an illustrious career which has provided her with a surfeit of anecdotes ranging from the hilarious to the downright bizarre. Her stories have helped to pass long journeys on tour, and I’ve been entertained, enthralled and at times, amazed.

One of the more poignant insights she has shared has really got me thinking about the nature of our profession as a lifestyle choice. On this very platform Filskit Theatre recently wrote very eloquently about the fading novelty of the artist on the road – forced to adjust to a diet of Boots Meal Deals, he has an encyclopedic knowledge of the standard room layout of budget hotel chains and longs for a home-cooked meal in the company of his loved ones.

It’s a way of life I have come to know well and accept as an inescapable part of the actor’s profession. The sad truth my colleague had observed was that in all her years in theatre she had seen a real shift within the creative community. No one was settling down anymore. No one was getting married, having children or getting mortgages – the actor’s way of life had become solitary, even anonymous. Collectively we had compromised for our art and subscribed to the bohemian existence of the wandering minstrel, with no ties to bind us either geographically or emotionally.

Now it must be said that this is not a universal truism. Many of us have strong relationships and family support networks and are able to strike a healthy balance. I’ve also met actors who claim to love the touring lifestyle. It’s a great way to see the world, to learn your craft and to gain a variety of experiences, but I’ve always needed stability. As an actor I am characteristically insecure and I need the love of my family infinitely more than the adulation of an audience. The uncertainty of my future is the cross I have to bear and it will always be difficult for me to promise the security my loved ones deserve.

The real problem is the lack of understanding and support of these needs in the industry. Equity fights for us to receive approved contracts and pension plans, and to stop people selling their services for free in an attempt to stamp out the exploitative elements of the business; in essence, it campaigns for actors to receive the rights of any other working professional. But the self-employed will always live a precarious existence, in which it is impossible to plan more than a month in advance and every opportunity must be seized to prepare for a potential dearth of options in the future.

My associate’s personal experiences as a wife and mother were what really hit home for me. Whether it was the community spirit of actors bringing their children to rehearsals in days gone by (evidently commonplace back then, but hard to comprehend by today’s standards) to babysitting for each other, even popping backstage to feed a baby mid performance, there is no provision for this kind of behaviour in modern theatre and as a result, people simply don’t do it.

The decision to perhaps take a couple of years out to have a baby can be a career-crippling move for an actress still making a name for herself, and with no maternity cover specified in short term contracts it’s often an option which is completely unviable. Relationships between actors on either side of the country in separate touring jobs can easily become strained, not to mention the professional jealousy that can often spring from such partnerships. It’s a sad thought that one can easily enjoy a successful lifetime in the arts and retire having never made any meaningful commitments along the way.

So ours is a vocation riddled with compromise, but a career is only what you make of it. You don’t have to live entirely at the mercy of fate – each decision is yours and yours alone. There are surely more creatives in the world now than there have ever been and the competition is fierce, but there’s an equally large support network out there if you want to engage with it. Whether it’s through online forums such as A Younger Theatre or making friends within the business, there are others everywhere sharing the same woes. For us to be an acting community again, we need to pull together – by offering a sofa to friend in need, helping to publicise a fringe production, even babysitting each other’s kids. In my experience actors are the most incredibly supportive people onstage, and it’s a virtue we must espouse offstage too.

Image credit: Sarah Macmillan.

In December,  I’m flying back home to spend 14 days with family, friends and people that are dear to me. My feelings about that? Mixed, to be perfectly honest.

A year ago I was at home, still quite freshly settling down and feeling culturally shocked after my time spent in the USA.  I was lucky enough to get involved with a German feature film shot partially in Prague and as I was there on the set, I couldn’t help but wonder about what my move to the UK was going to be like. I had no idea what I was letting myself in for. Not to mention that Christmas was the time when I saw most of my family and relatives and had to tell them that I was leaving again. We didn’t see each other for a year and half while I was in the USA; I just got back and I was saying my goodbyes again.

My family had no idea about my career choice. I mean, they were always there cheering for me whilst I did five years of school theatre, they came to see my performances, took photos and told me how proud they were. While I was in high school, they knew about my acting and watched some of my work. Yet I had the feeling that as I was growing up, they took it less and less seriously and kept asking what I really want to do and if I’d thought about the future. “I want to be an actress” wasn’t quite the answer, and they would react to it with a head shake and talks about how impossible that is. They cheered for me when I applied for business college as a continuation of my business and law high school education; I was one of the lucky few people who actually obtained a place on the course. “That’s where the money is, you are going to make yourself a great life!” they said. Well, you should have seen their faces when I told them I turned it down, had decided to work full-time for a few months to save up money, then was going to go to the USA to learn English so I could pursue an acting career abroad as that was what I’d always wanted. When I left as an au pair, they thought I was just going to have some fun, grow up and come back ready to go to college like my brother did. When I came back and told them what I did, everyone finally started to take me seriously. Hallelujah! Yet I’m still going to need to prove myself.

Now I’m heading back again, having had the most exciting, busy and productive 10 months of my life career-wise. I’ve fully focused on my career, dropped out all the non-acting related fun such as going out and travelling, and invested all my money and energy to acting. And man, it has borne fruit. However, it has also taken its toll in the form of stress and  constant not knowing what is going to happen in the next few weeks. Whilst this is like the dose of adrenalin in your bloodstream that keeps you going and always doing your best, even the most dedicated and stubborn person gets tired.

This is going to be a well-deserved holiday and I will come back recharged. And I definitely do have a lot to tell to my family. However, it makes me think – how am I actually going to explain all that? They have no idea how showbusiness works, in the Czech Republic or in the UK or USA. They are hardly going to appreciate that I’ve spent my whole time training and volunteering at the Actors’ Centre -  that’s probably going to sound to them like such a waste of time. Not to mention that blogging, Tweeting or networking won’t make much sense to them either. All the things that I seemingly have seeds planted for, but are not quite happening yet. That’s the trickiest bit. The only thing they might be cheerful about might be me getting my UK theatre debut as one of the lead characters in the Actors’ Centre’s Christmas Show – my first acting job in English. However, I just hear the questions coming – one role in 10 months? Is that all? What the heck have you been doing? Is it not going well over there? When are you coming home?

The explaining could never end, but after all I don’t really need to explain or justify anything. I’m proudly going to point out some highlights of my stay and that’s it. I know that they just want me to be happy and I love them for their worries. Going home doesn’t have to be stressful and humiliating as some people might feel, I believe that we should be proud of what we do no matter what that is, as long as it makes us happy and fulfilled. I think the key might be in the way we put it out. We get what we give.

Image by Rainer Hungershausen.