Embracing Opportunity

September 14th, 2019, an open day at East 15 Acting School, part of the University of Essex. A room filled with aspiring actors, their parents, and me. A potential mature student following a dream.

It wasn’t acting which lured me into the conservatoire, but an exciting new course, just one-year in. The BA in Creative Producing (Theatre and Short Film) ticked all the boxes for both an opportunity to enhance creative writing skills as well as gain a qualification to pursue a change in career. As an aspiring screenwriter with a passion for live entertainment, from street performers to theatre, dance and a little opera, this course had it all. There were modules in theatre practices and filmmaking, to help a writer understand the process of performance art, along with elements to complement and broaden art appreciation, administration and people skills, the possibilities for a future role within the growing creative industries seemed endless.

The icing on the cake for a return to study was the University of Essex being named University of the Year by the Times Higher Education Awards in 2018. Doing things differently and having an ethos of putting people first. Equality and addressing the gender pay gap in its workforce; putting the success of both students and staff at the centre of what they do, and recruiting students based on potential rather than previous success were fundamental values in opening an academic door.

The open day started as a gathering information exercise, but after almost an hour “chatting” to the head of the Creative Producing course, the dream became not just a possibility, but a definite option. With encouragement from everyone around me to “just do it”, along with a tally of all the positives of what if and why now, an application was submitted!

After an acceptance was confirmed on Friday 27th September and a quick overhaul of working hours, with support from my line manager, I started freshers’ week as a full-time undergraduate student on Monday 30 September 2019. This was just 15 days after a dream was inadvertently pitched and creatively transformed into reality.