About the Role

We are looking for someone who:

• Is inquisitive, curious and creative, and has a 'how do we make this work' attitude.

• Writes fluent english with attention to detail.

• Is numerate, analytical and computer literate.

• Has an engaging telephone manner and communicates precise information in a friendly way.

• Loves and believes in the value of live performance.

• Has a good sense of humour.

Our business is small, and so by its very nature everybody does a little bit of everything!

Your Role

You will get to know our customers, our range of work, and our processes in detail.

The majority of communication with our customer and prospective customer schools is by email and telephone, and much of your time will be spent dealing with schools. In this context you will:

• Work alongside a team of colleagues to respond to initial enquiries from schools in writing and by telephone. 

• Have particular responsibility for helping the schools who have already booked finalise the details of our visit to them. This makes a big difference in ensuring a successful visit.

• Handle invoice queries from schools, bank cheques and record this in our Xero bookkeeping software. Bookkeeping training will be provided - you just need to be organised and comfortable with figures.

In addition to your work with schools, our team of over 100 actors, dancers and facilitators creates admin too! We try to put in place simple systems to structure this work wherever possible, and work could include:

• DBS checks for actors, dancers and drama facilitators.

• Teaching actors to send expenses claims correctly, and processing their expenses.

• Helping the Workshop Coordinator with arrangements for rehearsals and training sessions.

• Occasional earlier starts (and corresponding earlier finishes) on some busy days in case workshop leaders need support due to travel problems on their way to schools in the morning.

You will facilitate the smooth running of the company, ensuring that we run efficiently and as if we were all based in the same office every day. This could include:

• Collecting the post, and distributing or processing everything we have received so that we can continue to run a paperless remote working system, including entering supplier’s bills into the accounts system.

• A myriad of other tasks from across the whole company. This role is often a “filling in the gaps” job, which means it is interesting and varied and you get to experience and participate in everything that we do whilst still having your own areas that you look after.

You will get a fascinating insight into the worlds of theatre and education - and how they interface.

Your working day

Our working day is from 9am until 5.30pm when working remotely and from 10am until 6.30pm when at Somerset House or working from a rehearsal room. Occasionally you may be asked to start and finish half an hour earlier. Our office team works from Monday to Friday.

We expect there to be one Saturday in late November when we would like you to see a pantomime dress rehearsal, and there will be a small amount of out of hours work required:

• Occasional long days as we prepare for busy periods.

• Responding to last minute issues occurring which can take place in evenings and at weekends, particularly in December and March. This will be fairly infrequent in this role, but you may be asked to help a colleague.

Christmas shutdown

In recompense for these occasional additional hours the office shuts down from shortly before Christmas until after New Year but the team remains on full pay.

The rhythm of the year

This job runs from September to Easter as this is the busiest part of the year for us.

Key activities in the autumn include:

First few weeks - structured training programme, running alongside increasing amounts of actual work.

September and October - handling enquiries from schools about work this term, and booking and timetabling workshops. We have detailed systems for doing this, and the school year starts with comprehensive training.

October to December - supporting the training of facilitators and dancers, DBS checks, confirming arrangements with schools. Pantomime rehearsals and performances and workshops celebrating Diwali and lots of Christmas themes. For the office team this means providing pastoral care, logistics and payroll/expenses for the facilitators and performers, and keeping in touch with schools.

A similar pattern exists in the spring term.

Who would enjoy this work?

If you are well organised, love solving unexpected problems, have great attention to detail, and enjoy people then you will enjoy this job, do good work, and make a difference. If solving unexpected problems at short notice stresses you out this isn’t the job for you! We want to be a place where you feel you are doing your best work.