Tuesday 12 July 2016

Stories from the Professional Theatre Training Program: Deborah Lim

Our Professional Theatre Training Program (PTTP) offers financial support for unique and flexible training with a chosen mentor in any theatrical discipline (except performance.)

Deborah Lim is training in production management with sandra Henderson at the Toronto Fringe Festival.

(June 6, 2016) This is the end of week seven for me in my fourteen-week training at the Toronto Fringe. My experience has been really positive thus far. As soon as I joined the Fringe team, I was quickly made acquainted with the main venue and site-specific productions in this year’s Fringe Festival. I have proofed schedules, attended meetings, sat in on interviews, led a stage management seminar, been in conversation with production companies about safety concerns and their technical requirements, and gone on venue walk-throughs to familiarize myself and the production companies with Fringe policies and their spaces. I have met and talked to so many people in the past few weeks about their shows and ideas.

The training plan my mentor, sandra, and I originally created together was based around the Fringe schedule and what can be learned from the day-to-day events and tasks that need to be accomplished in order for the festival to run smoothly. We have this plan sitting on our desk and we refer to it occasionally, but we have also adjusted to address the needs of the festival and production companies as they come up.

I really enjoy working with sandra and the rest of the Fringe staff in the office. While the Fringe festival spans across a very large part of the city, our home base is located at the Fringe office. It is an open-concept office with an environment that promotes collaboration. In this office, we are able to easily have conversations across the room to help each other solve problems and feed off each others’ energy and ideas. sandra has been a great mentor in supporting me and showing me the ropes but has also allowed me to take the lead on many projects and opportunities. With the festival only a few weeks away, things are getting busier and the excitement grows.

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The next application deadline for the Professional Theatre Training Program is October 3, 2016.


Theatre Ontario’s Professional Theatre Training Program is funded by the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario.

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