Third Angel

2021 has got off to a cracking start at Third Angel HQ, with not one but TWO new members of staff joining us in January. The two posts, Digital Marketing Manager and Community Producer, are integral to the programme of work we’ll be delivering this year and we’re looking forward to telling you all about that very soon.  

So, without further ado, we’re delighted to introduce Helen Varley, who will be turbo-charging our digital communications. Let’s hand over so she can say Hi in her own words (and pictures. The pictures are important. You’ll see…)

I’m Helen and I’m SUPER EXCITED to be part of the Third Angel team in the role of Digital Marketing Manager.

A bit about me…

I’ve always been passionate about theatre, art and books. I made my first debut on stage at just nine years old. As I’ve got older, I’ve dabbled in loads of different mediums, from playwriting and crafting to photography, I just LOVE telling stories and experimenting with new ways to share them. Life is too short to have just one creative outlet!

I fell in love with digital content creation while studying for my MA in Journalism in London and turned this passion into my career. I have worked on some amazing factual and scripted shows and events, including the Radio 1 Teen Awards, Tracy Beaker Returns and my personal favourite, Blue Peter. I don’t like to brag, but some of the digital content I have produced has been nominated for awards, including a BAFTA! I’ve also done a presentation to HRH Prince William and met so many amazing people and celebrities, although I still feel a little embarrassed that I once mistook Justin Bieber for the office intern – oops!

I spent eleven happy years at the BBC, but I was made redundant from my post as Senior Content Producer last year as a result of the global pandemic. At the time, it felt utterly heart breaking and terrifying, but looking back it was a blessing in disguise as it meant I could rediscover my true passions exploring and supporting the arts. I’m so happy to be starting this new chapter with a company like Third Angel.

When I saw the Digital Marketing Manager role advertised, I knew straight away that I wanted it. I am very lucky to be working for a small company with big ideas and a bucketload of passion for telling great stories. As it is a part time role, I’m going to be spending the rest of my time working on my debut novel, which is currently on its second edit.

Although I’ve only been at Third Angel a couple of days, I’m itching to get started. I’ve already seen some of the TOP SECRET plans for upcoming shows and all I can say is I hope you are following us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook as big news is heading your way and you don’t want to miss it! Also, don’t forget to subscribe to our mailing list to be the first to hear about it all…

We were deeply saddened this week to hear of the death of Professor Noel Witts. Noel was one of Third Angel’s first board members, and remained a friend of the company long after he stepped down. Alex knew him best, as a member of the Performing Arts department at Leeds Beckett University that Noel did so much to shape. Here’s Alex’s tribute. 

I first met Noel in the late 1990s. We were both on a selection panel for the New Works Festival in Leicester. Third Angel had only been in existence for two or three years, and I was very pleased and slightly daunted to be on the other side of the programming table. Also on the panel was Noel Witts, who I hadn’t previously met, but who I knew was an important and influential academic. Due to the logistics of the day and availability of other panel members, Noel and I ended up having lunch together, in a restaurant around the corner from The Y Theatre, which was to be one of the sites for the festival.

Initially, I think, I was slightly intimidated. But there was no need to be. My abiding memory of the conversation that ran through lunch and into our work in the afternoon, is of Noel’s generosity of thought. He was genuinely interested in who I was, who Third Angel was, where I was from – Sheffield – what was going on there in the world of performance, what I thought of the job he and I were doing that day, what work I thought we should be selecting and supporting.

In the years that followed I learned that this was typical of Noel. As a performance academic what he was most interested in was what artists themselves had to say about how they made theatre and performance. His outlook was fiercely international, and his interests were people, performance and conversation. I worked with him a number of times in the following years in Scarborough, where his welcome and conversation were always as generous as the first time we met.

Noel was instrumental in establishing the Performing Arts provision at Leeds Beckett University, which I joined as a part-time lecturer as it welcomed its first cohort in 2006. It was a privilege to work alongside him. His enthusiasm was infectious. Whenever he was teaching, or seeing students’ work, he always saw the positives first: he was encouraging, supportive and inspiring.

We were delighted that Noel then joined the board of Third Angel, bringing with him his wisdom, enthusiasm and sense of humour. Even after he had completed his years on the board, he continued to be a great supporter of the company and we will always be grateful for that. We are richer for having known him, and we will miss him.

We’re really excited to announce that we are creating two new short-term opportunities to join the Third Angel team. Could you be just the person we’re looking for? You will bring your experience and insight to help us to meet the challenges of the ‘new normal’ and shape our strategy for the next five years.

Our new Community Producer will work closely with our Artistic Directors to find new ways for Third Angel to enable people to express their own creativity, find their voice and tell their stories. We’re looking for an experienced arts practitioner who is passionate about the power of creativity to transform lives.

Inherited Cities 2018 Photograph JSP Photography

The Digital Marketing Manager will help make the most of our digital platforms and ensure that our online presence is as innovative and engaging as our live work. We’re looking for an experienced marketing professional with a wealth of digital knowledge, a love of data, strong copywriting skills and an excellent eye for design. 

Still from Phone Company (2017)

Both positions are part-time (2 days a week) for 6 months, with a salary of £866/month (£26,000 p/a full time equivalent). 

There’s a short turnaround for applications, so time is of the essence! The closing date for both posts is 10am on Wednesday 2 December 2020 and interviews will be held on 14, 15 or 16 December (tbc).

You can download the Information Packs below. If you have any questions please email us on mail@thirdangel.co.uk, or if it would be helpful to have an informal chat you can call us on 0114 274 4974 or 07592 669167.

Click here for the Community Producer

Click here for the Digital Marketing Manager

We’re looking forward to reading your application!  

We’re really excited to share the news that we are creating a new permanent role within the Third Angel office team. After working with fantastic marketing freelancers for many years, we’ve decided that it’s time to bring these responsibilities and expertise into our core team and recruit a part-time Marketing Assistant. 

We’re looking for someone enthusiastic and full of ideas, with a great eye for detail. You will have some experience of marketing, publicity or press but this doesn’t have to have been via paid employment, You’ll find everything else you need to know about the job in the Applicant Pack, and you’ll find a download link at the bottom of this post. 

We want our staff team to be representative of the diversity of the UK population and are keen to receive applications from people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds and from those who identify as D/deaf or disabled. 

If you’re considering an application, here’s a few helpful tips to get you started: 

• First of all, read the Information Pack carefully. Is this the right role for you?
• Remember that we get lots of applications when we’re recruiting, so anyone who cannot show that they meet EVERY ONE of the essential criteria is very unlikely to be shortlisted.  
• Make sure you have taken time to tell us HOW you meet each one of the points of the essential criteria, (and as many of the desirable criteria you can), by giving examples. Don’t assume that this will be obvious to us from reading your employment or education history, make it absolutely clear. However, there is no need to write pages and pages – bullet points and concise sentences are much more effective, especially when we have lots of applications to look at.
• Where we have asked for specific experience, this doesn’t just mean employment experience. You could use examples from your hobbies, voluntary work, social life, family or school / college / university to demonstrate that you understand what skills are likely to be needed and have dipped your toe in.
• Attention to detail is important, as it is our first indication that you have got what it takes to do the job! Use a spell check, make sure you have completed ALL the required forms, and follow the instructions to the letter!

The closing date for applications is 10am on Monday 23 March and interviews will be held on Monday 6 April 2020. Unfortunately, we’re unable to be flexible on the interview date so please ensure you would be able to attend on that date.  

You can download the Applicant Pack here. If you have any questions please email us on mail@thirdangel.co.uk or if it would be helpful to have an informal chat you can call us on 0114 274 4974 and ask for me (Laura, General Manager) or Hilary (Executive Producer).

A few months ago we were delighted to hear that our application to jointly host a PhD with Sheffield University was successful, and that Rob Fellman would be joining us to start his work on “Contemporary theatre-making and company longevity: technologies of creation, collaboration and remembering” this autumn. We’re looking forward to working with Rob, and very excited to see what he finds in our archive - both literally and analytically! So, slightly later than planned, we’d like to introduce him. Or rather, let him introduce himself…

By way of a brief introduction, my name is Rob and I am a PhD researcher at the University of Sheffield. I recently started working on something called a ‘collaborative doctoral award’. These ‘CDA’s’ (as they are more simply named) reflect changing approaches within Higher Education institutions and funding bodies alike, to enact a more integrated form of academic learning; positioning researchers alongside partner organisations to produce mutually beneficial outcomes.  

It all sounds rather formal put that way, but it essentially means that over the next three years I have the unique pleasure of working with Third Angel, as a collaborator of sorts. I will be beginning my journey by looking into the archived materials that Alex, Rachael and their past creative collaborators have produced during formative rehearsals, whilst also looking ahead to what might still be to come… There are many possibilities that can arise from the reflection and evaluation of the past, that might unearth an essence or ‘trace’ of what Third Angel contribute to the field of contemporary theatre (and indeed what importance they are still yet to play). I am intrigued to find out what relationships exist between the knowledge contained in Third Angel’s archive and the knowledge held by its members and collaborators. How might Third Angel’s approach to ‘collecting’ and ‘retelling’ be considered, especially in view of their company’s longevity (approaching 25 years in action)? 

The recent book launch of ‘There’s A Room’ (you can read the recent blog post on this here for a bit more context) marks a defining moment in Third Angel’s journey. Its release acts as a commitment. Just as their words are committed to paper, so too are they reaffirming a commitment to the sharing and openness that has characterised much of their creative practice to date. Third Angel are, by their very nature, a collaborative company and the texts of ‘There’s A Room’ are no exception. Alongside Rachael and Alex the likes of Jerry Killick, mala voadora and Chris Thorpe knowingly make their marks on its pages, whilst unnamed others may (or may not) have contributed in a multitude of different ways; in stories shared, in chance meetings, or in simply being in the wrong place at the right time… Third Angel are masters of observation, so anything could make it in!



What then of all the collaborators to come; readers and performers of these texts (you? Me?) through which the legacy of Third Angel can be breathed a lasting life; their stories once again re-told and re-imagined? My research hopes to engage with some of these (admittedly broad!) questions. I hope to find out how collaborative work impacts on the potential for longevity in the arts sector that Third Angel so wonderfully embody – is it true that there is a strength in numbers?  

I plan to keep you updated on this blog with some of my findings, both with attempts at answers to the questions posed above, as well as some exciting discoveries from the archive (we hope)! I look forward to sharing my journey with you. If you are interested in keeping a closer eye on what I am up to, you can find me on Twitter @Rob_Fellman so please do feel free to connect with me on there. Oh, and if you haven’t got your copy of ‘There’s A Room’ yet, you can grab yours here!  

Watch this space…

Could that be you..?

Third Angel has a brilliantly supportive board of trustees who keep a broad overview of our plans, support the team, champion the work and ensure we fulfil our charitable purpose. They also keep track of the balance of skills and representation on the board itself as members’ terms of service come to an end, and so we’re regularly looking for new trustees!

We’re at an exciting point in the company’s development as we approach our 25th anniversary in 2020, so it’s an excellent time to join as we celebrate achievements of the past, and think big in our planning for the future.

Daragh O’Reilly has been on our board for almost three years now, and this is his take on being a Third Angel trustee:

“A colleague drew my attention to Third Angel 3-4 years ago, and the fact that they were looking for board members. My own background was originally in sales and marketing, and more recently in arts marketing research and teaching. I checked out the company’s website and was impressed by their work and story.

“After an initial chat over coffee with Hilary Foster, currently Executive Producer at Third Angel, I submitted a short expression of interest form, and was invited along to a board meeting. It was exciting to have the opportunity to see how organisation works from the inside, and this confirmed my interest in wanting to contribute.

“Like with any new organisation, it took me a while to get a sense of the business cycle, and the specifics of the operating environment (cultural policy, funding, theatre/performance business practices). Because Third Angel is an extremely well organised company, this process was made relatively easy.

“During the time I have been on the board, I have seen the company become a charity, successfully renew its status as an Arts Council National Portfolio Organisation, and move premises to Harland Works. One of the most moving shows I have seen in my thirty years in Sheffield was Inherited Cities, a show devised and performed by Sheffield school pupils under the guidance and direction of the Third Angel team.

“There is always something going on at Third Angel, whether it is the touring, the development and presentation of new work, business planning, fundraising, profile raising, or reaching out to new funders, mentees, schools, and audiences. This means that there is always plenty of scope for a trustee to contribute from their own professional perspective and skill-set, and to help Third Angel become all that it wants to be.”

We welcome applications from everyone who feels that they can support, encourage and contribute, but we are particularly interested in applicants with the following skills and experience to complement the current membership of our board:

• Human Resources (HR)
• Entrepreneurship / enterprise / sales strategy
• Public relations (PR)
• Property and estate management
• IT / digital

Third Angel is committed to ensuring that our Board of Trustees is representative of the diversity of the UK population and would like to encourage applications from people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds as well as those who identify as D/deaf or disabled.

Closing date for applications is Friday 1^st November 2019 – please download our application pack for more information here: https://tinyurl.com/y3o3gd82

*Edited in February 2023 to remove donation links, after announcement of closure*

After a long and rigorous application process, we are over the moon that Third Angel is now formally recognised as a charity, and this opens up lots of new ways for people to support our work.

During 2019-20, we are aiming to raise £16,000 from individual donations, grants and sponsorship to ensure that we can deliver our full programme of activity.

These funds will mean that we are able to:

·    Make time to research and develop new shows;

·       Explore new ways for people to experience theatre, especially for those who can’t get out and about;

·       Encourage young people aged 14-19 to find their voice and raise their aspirations by getting involved in the arts (Future Makers) and gaining qualifications outside of school (Arts Award);

·       Make development opportunities for artists / companies accessible to all by paying artists for their time and offering free training (BOOST);

·       Nurture diversity in the arts and encourage a wider range of voices to be heard.

Can you help us to achieve our goal?

There are a number of ways in which you can support Third Angel’s work:

DONATE! Make a donation through Wonderful. The wonderful thing about Wonderful is that they pass on EVERY penny that you donate, plus 100% of the Gift Aid, direct to us, no fees or charges.

SHOP! Raise money for Third Angel when you do your online shopping without spending an extra penny:

o   Easyfundraising gathers donations for Third Angel from over 3,600 online retailers when you shop with them.

o   Nominate Third Angel as your favourite charity on eBay and you can donate at checkout or nominate us to receive a donation when you sell an item.

CONNECT! Do you have contacts in local or national businesses that might be interested in supporting our work or sponsoring our Future Makers programme of workshops for 14-19 year olds? Connect us up!

And most importantly of all, SPREAD THE WORD! If you know someone who has been touched by Third Angel’s work, has received support from our team or has benefitted from our programmes, please pass this on.

Every penny we receive will help us to continue to create and tour high quality artistic work, and help others to achieve their potential and broaden horizons through participation in the arts.

Thank you!

Laura

General Manager

Third Angel’s paid internship programme is one of my favourite things of all we’ve been able to do since becoming a National Portfolio Organisation in 2015. It’s also one of the most bittersweet. We routinely get 40+ applications from passionate, articulate, capable people wanting to get into arts admin and producing, and we can only hire one. As a very small team, we get to know our intern really well, see them challenged by some things, excel at others, learn, grow, gain confidence in themselves and their abilities, discover love for things they never thought they’d enjoy, which is all SO brilliant to be part of. And then, after 18 months, we have to say goodbye and start all over again! 

And it’s that time again. We’re delighted to be able to introduce you to our wonderful 2019-20 intern Sam Turner. 

I’m Sam, and I’m delighted to introduce myself as Third Angel’s fourth Intern.

I’ve followed Third Angel’s work since moving to Sheffield in 2014 and I’ve greatly valued volunteering with the company to support my development as a theatre-maker; I’ve got stuck into various creative projects and roles – from stage management to painting a giant map of the world.

A little about me:

I’ve enjoyed making a range of creative work in Sheffield’s diverse art scene and involving myself with theatres, festivals and artists. I enjoy contemporary performance, supporting fun projects and encouraging others to engage with creativity. I love logistics, creative discussion and drinking a lot of coffee in the process. I’ve supported new writing and produced work for venues and festivals across the country – from Edinburgh to an outdoor production at a beer festival in rural Suffolk.

Since graduating in English and Theatre last July, I have enjoyed working hard as Theatre Deli’s Front of House Manager and managing creative projects freelance; my last endeavour was an immersive production of A Christmas Carol which included a two-course meal.

The Administration and Production Internship appealed to me for offering an opportunity to develop my skills and confidence within arts management – a rare opening. I’m looking forward to working with a small (but mighty) team to support important creative work and develop a multitude of skills. I’m thankful for the opportunity to find my pathway and pursue my career ambitions, with support from the Third Angel team. Working with Sarah has given me an insight into the attributes I can develop and has revealed how integral the Intern role is to Third Angel’s smooth running. I feel ready for the challenge and I wish Sarah the very best with her next adventure.

I’ve enjoyed my first few weeks in the office and I’m looking forward to undertaking many exciting challenges over the next eighteen months. I’ll be working part-time hours with Third Angel and I’m actively looking for other interesting projects to engage with, in Sheffield and beyond.”

And now to bid a very fond farewell to the equally marvellous Sarah Webb, who’s seen us through some exciting and challenging times, in particular shouldering big responsibilities on our large-scale show with young people, Inherited Cites, and taking our free workshop programme Future Makers to new heights. And we wish her all the very best for the future, which we know will be stellar. 

“Well, that was a busy 18 months. I might need another 18 to attempt to summarise them. This has been an internship of blood (don’t worry, just paper cuts and the like), sweat, tears and laughter - and I wouldn’t change a thing! The experience has been a highly active springboard to developing new (and underused) skills, and ultimately setting me up for the next step in arts management. And now that’s what I’m about to do. The time has come for me to (reluctantly) leave the Third Angel team, but lucky me, I’m moving over to yet another great arts organisation. I’ll soon be starting as Unlimited Theatre’s General and Finance Administrator. On top of this, I’ll also be working with Harland Works on an exciting new project, and if that wasn’t enough, I’m lending a hand on the opening tour of S.H.E.D. this summer!

Before I go, I just want to say the BIGGEST thank you to Third Angel for welcoming me to the family. What sets this internship out from the rest (though there’s not many out there for aspiring arts managers) is the amount of time and energy that that each member of the team invested into ensuring my time with them was as varied, enlightening, rewarding and challenging as possible. I’m eternally grateful and vow to make it worth their while! I hope they don’t miss the sound of me crunching away on packs of crisps in the office too much…”

Nope, nothing in my eye, probably just early hayfever…

Hilary