Internships on the up

Good news for young, aspiring theatricals: 11 theatres based in the south-east and east of England are set to offer six-month internships to 16 young people who are unemployed, after the theatres received funding from Arts Council England’s Creative Employment Programme. The programme was announced in 2012, with the aim of subsidising up to 6,500 new apprenticeships, pre-apprenticeships and paid internships across the arts and cultural sector for the unemployed aged 16 to 24. Whilst internships of any kind, not necessarily in the arts sector, are controversial to say the least, this looks to be a fantastic scheme to help young people engage with a work sector they wish to enter whist gaining the relevant experience to get them onto the career ladder. Many argue that internships and work experience placements take advantage of and exploit the skills and time of young people, with many of the unpaid variety inaccessible to most young people. With the ACE scheme young people will now get the chance to experience their career goal on a smaller scale, and not watch on the side-lines as their wealthier peers are able to fund this vital experience. http://youtu.be/ujBAjCcEXt4 ACE’s scheme has awarded the theatres half of the money needed (£41,200) to pay the interns, with the venues raising the rest of the money required. The theatres are all part of ‘House’, a consortium of 116 theatres which came together in 2012 to improve the range and scale of theatre presented across the region. The internships will be advertised through Job Centre Plus, and hosted by the following venues: the Corn Exchange in Newbury, Farnham Maltings in Surrey, the Arts Centre in Letchworth, Brighton Dome and Festival, the Cornerstone in Didcot, Creative Arts East Live, Gulbenkian in Kent, the Hazlitt Arts Centre in Maidstone, and the South Street Arts Centre in Reading.