"A production manager needs to know when they're being fed cattle manure"

Hometown
Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, but now – via many other places – a small village in North Yorkshire

What do you do?
Production manager at Opera North

What was your very first role in theatre?
Followspot operator for the school Gilbert and Sullivans, but first paid job was as a cassie (a casual worker) at Windsor Theatre Royal

What else have you done in theatre?
- technician in an arts centre
- electrician in a small/ medium scale touring house
- one-night-stand touring as electrician and lighting designer
- fashion show stage/ lx (lighting) technician
- production management and lighting for Fires Of London (chamber music ensemble, now dispanded)
- flyman at Duke Of York’s Theatre, West End
- production manager Dukes Playhouse, Lancaster
- production manager York Theatre Royal
- production management at London Bubble
- production management at West Yorkshire Playhouse
- part-time lecturer in technical theatre at York College
- head of technical services Northern Ballet Theatre
- crew chief and fork-lift driver for outdoor stages

Have you got any qualifications?
NVQ A1 assessor and working towards V1 internal verifier for Skillscene

What did you do before you worked in theatre?
Highways surveying and engineering

How did you make the move to working in theatre?
A mate got me a cassie job and then I applied for full

What did you want to be when you grew up?
Surveyor or TV cameraman

What do you do all day?
The quick answer is emailing, phoning, spreadsheeting, CADing and chatting.

Production management for touring opera is different to my previous production management experience in as much I’m only concerned with productions, unlike repertory theatre colleagues who are often also personnel managers, building maintenance supervisors, plumbers and air conditioning engineers.

I am one of two production managers with a half share each in a production office coordinator/ CAD draughtsperson. As well as general overseeing of the shows – especially the sets – for our three seasons each year each with three productions per season, we have to make sure that our shows are easily tourable and adaptable to our host venues, the grids can store most of flown pieces for the three shows without totally empting them every nightshift, that they can turn round quickly to achieve our daily rep system and that they can all easily pack into containers to go overseas.

What’s the best thing about your job?
Seeing the fruits of my labours on opening nights

And the worst?
Dashing designers’ and directors’ dreams by telling them that their pride and joy is too big or expensive, usually both

What’s your dream job in theatre?
For me, production management is hard to beat, but if I were doing something else it would be skippering a pair of traditional working narrow boats along the Leeds and Liverpool Canal

Got any wise words for someone who wants to be where you are now?
A production manager needs a wide theatrical background and a lot of common sense to know when they are being fed cattle manure.

The ability to say no firmly, but politely is vital and getting people to believe that your good idea was actually their good idea is always a winner.