Greetings, my name is Nicolas Lay and I am an intern for the Firehall Arts Centre.
My experience at the Firehall has been one of the most thrilling ones I’ve had since moving here 3 months ago from a small prairie town in Alberta. I’ve never worked in a performing arts theatre before and now I don’t ever want to stop working in one. I love how the overall atmosphere of the Firehall is about having fun and not taking things too seriously. In my mind the Firehall has been a positive and uplifting experience. I could never stress enough about how grateful I am to have been chosen for this internship. The people are great; whenever I needed help, no matter what I am doing, they always have my back.
The work itself is a pleasure as well, mainly because I’ve never done anything like it before. Working stage production was probably one of the easier jobs I’ve had here because manual, labor-intensive, jobs have always been my forte. Marketing was something that was completely foreign to me, but when I was chosen to help promote the Ubuntu, I tackled the challenge head-on, and discovered that marketing wasn’t all that difficult after all. Front-of-House was another job that I had no prior experience in but when I job-shadowed FOH last week I found it to be fun and rejuvenating, with exception to the prospect of a FOH speech (which fortunately I didn’t have to do that day). The Bar shadow was equally as fun as working FOH had been and is maybe something I’d consider trying outside the Firehall as a potential part-time job. Box Office training (yet another first) was interesting, though I did not enjoy it as much as working FOH or the Bar. Maybe I just found the memorization of all those policies to be the most intimidating part of the job, but come what may, I wouldn’t mind trying it again.
Things are shaping up to be rather busy; with BC Buds coming in a few weeks I’m expecting a larger than usual work load. I’m not too sure what fate has in store for me in the coming weeks, but one thing is certain: I am ready to meet these challenges head on and I hope to do my absolute best in getting the job done.