Pros
1) Exploring Italy - I got to travel A LOT, to places I would never have thought to travel to, and I saw some beautiful towns and ate some amazing food. 2)Learning Italian... In Italy. It's really the best way to learn, even though you're in an English theatre group, you're constantly surrounded by Italians so the least you can do is try to learn it! It also makes it a lot easier when trying to talk to schools and teachers. 3)Working with fun, young, like-minded individuals. I did three tours with Theatrino and am still good friends with my group members. You spend practically all your time together so you really bond, learn and grow together! 4)High energy job that is never boring - I personally hate office work and always prefer a job that's invigorating. Yes it's physically demanding, the shows are very high energy and you perform 3 a day, plus do workshops and have to setup and block down the stage - so this isn't for anyone lazy or who isn't a team player. 5)Working with some great children - Italian children (in my experience) are very different to British children. They get really into Theatrino (for the most part) and sometimes the post-show workshops are even more fun than the show itself. 6) Italian teachers - we had some great times with some of the teachers, who would insist on buying us lunch or taking us out for dinner or treating us to breakfast before the show. 7) The office staff always try to be as helpful as possible - baring in mind in Italy things work very differently to the UK! There's a lot more of a relaxed attitude about everything, which I think is very unlike British mentality. 8) The rehearsal weeks are a lot of fun - meeting a whole group of new people who will essentially be your family for the next few months! 9) Everyday is different - if you hate monotony then this job is great! You might be doing the same 10 shows on a loop but every town, city, school, teacher, group of kids is different. Things can go wrong but really this job just requires someone grounded and with common sense. 10) Being part of an organisation that really believes what they're doing is valuable and can change children's education for the better. I loved working with ACLE because of this, and the job as such is really rewarding! Some days we'd have masses of kids screaming for our autographs and waving us off with huge smiles. Definitely a feel good kinda job! 11) Life changing! This was one of the best experiences of my life, it had its ups and downs but the ups seriously out way the downs. It made me a more confident person, I got to learn who I was and what I wanted to do with myself. I made great contacts for the future and worked with a great director and more established actors, who I was able to learn a lot from. I was there for a year and a half and I really felt I matured after it all!
Cons
1) The role can be tiring, especially if you have to do more than 1 school in a day. But the office always try and make your job as easy as possible for you. 2) Rehearsals can be a whirlwind & pretty daunting, especially with having to learn 10+ new scripts in just a couple of weeks, plus making sure to get everything grammatically correct! 3) If you get placed in a group with someone you dislike, it can be a difficult tour. They do ask you in advance if there's anyone you think you wouldn't be able to work with so make sure to really think this through! Although sometimes in just a couple of weeks it's difficult to really know! 3) Italian Schools and Teachers aren't as organised as you'd hope. Some English teachers don't actually speak English either - in fact the general level of English in Italy is really poor! So best to prepare and start learning the basics! Often schools can sometimes change things last minute so you have to really just be prepared and think on your feet. 4) Some of the journeys from one school to the next location can be pretty long. There were some days where we'd have to drive 2-3hours after doing 3 shows that day. Thankfully there's always more than one driver in a group, so the burden isn't left to just one person!