Rosely's story as Production Assistant on C3 Festivals
Rosely performing in Somebody to Someone at C3 Festivals. Photography by Alicia Clarke.
My name is Rosely.
I am a half Hong Kong Chinese and Filiphina trans girl. I chose my name myself.
I think I've been in Company Three for four years now - I joined right after COVID. I think that was 2021 when I came to London with my family from Hong Kong. At school, I told the teachers “I wanted to study theatre, but you removed it as soon as I arrived. So the SEN teachers told me, “Oh, why don’t you come to this place - Company Three.”
On C3 Festivals, I worked as the Production Assistant. Before the festival started, the main thing that I was doing was helping Delyth (the set, costume and prop designer) with gathering things and helping to make props and costume. Then during rehearsals, I was a runner, so I would travel and collect props and take them to the venue. I participated in the production meetings and I sat in on tech meetings as well. And then I was also there for the get in, when I was organising each group’s props and costumes.
I enjoyed learning many things - I would learn very random things as well when we were doing tech at the venue, or when I was sitting in the tech booth, observing. Sometimes Ren (Lighting Designer and Technician) and Vivi (Stage Manager) would say, “Oh, this is for this. We use this for that.” so I learnt a bit about operating a show and a tech panel. I was learning about the different roles and positions too.
From an actor’s perspective, you don’t hear what happens during production meetings or things - discussions of where the venue is, or the props that we need to buy to make, or when people are needed in. That surprised me, because I’m not used to listening to those things. I’m like, ‘Ok, so this is what happened for the past few years when I was in shows, I just didn’t know about it.’