experience in training and development. The nature of the production in the theatre industry,
as John notes, has changed profoundly over the last 20 years because there are:
fewer reps and increasing co-productions. It’s not about having a permanent company of stage
management, actors or technicians. We are bringing in shows, co-producing or a show starts
somewhere else or not building them all - shared-around. So, the need for having large numbers of
permanent staff is no longer an option. Also, there are often less productions to build, you keep much
less core technical staff within the building, and hire freelancers and casuals when required (John Pitt,
interview, October 2005).
Thus, the Rep in common with many other parts of the creative and cultural sector is
characterised by a ‘project culture’ (Bilton, 2007, page 27). In its case, this new work context
means that taking:
something as cumbersome as NVQs is just not practical. There is no time. When the show goes on,
people are working from nine to nine and on weekends, and when the show is running, there are
performances sometimes two times a day, five days a week (John Pitt, interview, October 2006).
It is essential, according to John for apprentices to be ‘immersed in theatre life’, that is,
involved in every stage of mounting a production. Consequently, it is utterly impracticable to
release apprentices to attend courses in FE colleges or private training providers that have a
fixed pattern of attendance or to try stop and assess apprentices’ competence in the middle of
a production. To do so would deny the apprentices the opportunity to develop key aspects of
vocational practice which not necessarily surface again within the life span of a production.
‘Vocationality ’and ‘work flow’ as the basis of skill formation
John invokes the notion of ‘vocationality’14 as the glue which holds the work experience and
off-the-job training together, as he observes: ‘It is vocationality which makes apprentices
employable as freelancers who aren’t pigeonholed’, and therefore, the TA aims ‘to keep
vocationality as close as possible’ (John Pitt, interview, October 2005). By vocationality, John
means grasping the reasons for and relationships between the production and directorial
strategies required to put on a production as well as the development of the specific forms of
vocational practice so as to contribute effectively to that production. Thus, the Rep tried to
strike a ‘balance in the TA between sending apprentices off to attend courses arranged by the
Rep but not so that they missed what is happening here’ (John Pitt, interview, October 2005).
14 John’s use of the term ‘vocationality’ has many affinities with our concept of vocational practice. It is an
explicit recognition that wig making, costume making etc are best learnt as situated forms of practice, in the case
of the Rep as part of the experience of putting on a play, and also forms of vocational practice that have to be
supplemented by grasping the diverse disciplinary knowledge that is an integral part of this practice.