What is Stage Sight?
Stage Sight’s vision is to create an off stage workforce that is more reflective of our society today, inclusive of ethnicity, class and disability.
These roles can be anything from stage management to theatre technicians to members of the creative team. Stage Sight showcases good practice and success in this area. We are a collaborative network that is open to everyone and free to join.
We ask members to commit to making a practical change and to share their progress and learning.
We raise awareness of the need to achieve a more balanced off stage workforce, and we encourage practical, simple steps to achieve this. We offer a range of resources which includes:
- A comprehensive list of our members’ initiatives, detailing the practical changes they are implementing
- A collection of case studies offering evaluation on projects for you to learn from
- Networking opportunities with other Stage Sight members
- Access to guidance documents
Why We Exist
A message from Prema Mehta, Stage Sight’s founder.
It’s fair to say I don’t come from a theatrical family, but after my first school trip to the theatre to watch Blood Brothers I realised theatre had great power to tell stories, and to transport you into another world.
My interest in theatre developed, and whilst studying Theatre Studies A Level, I chose lighting as my specialist skill. I explored this further at Guildhall as I realised there was a role that combined design, art and theatre, an area of work that I could bring my own style to.
Now the beauty for me comes during technical rehearsals – an incredible collaboration that fuses departments and components together for the first time. Listening to the team on headsets all working together to run the show, the professionalism, the discipline, the adrenaline as problems arise and are solved, what I see and what I hear is what I consider to be true theatrical magic.
My mother recently said ‘You are widening our world’ as I share the productions I work on, or have watched, with them. At a time when our society is at risk of fragmentation, her statement shows the real power of theatre.
Many people don’t know about theatre – we could all do more to reach out to larger pools of our community to widen our workforce and our pool of talent.
This is why I founded Stage Sight. It’s a collective to encourage us as an industry to open our doors to everyone. There is much to be changed, and encouraged, and learnt from.
Your support and commitment to Stage Sight shows you share our core values: whoever you are, wherever you’ve come from, this industry belongs to you.
