Power-woman behind a theatre company

Power-woman behind a theatre company

“I went to university thinking I wanted to do acting. At that time I thought drama was just acting,” Charlotte Bennett says, sitting in a cafe right around the corner of the theatre where Carole King’s musical Beautiful is playing. That’s where the office of her theatre production company is based. 

“I started to get interested in other things when I realised I was very bad at acting, I couldn’t get into any plays so I just sat at home bored. I thought I’ll just direct a play then, even when I didn’t really know what that meant.”

Charlotte feels she was very lucky going to university knowing what she wanted to do, not trying to figure it out like the rest of us. Poppy Melzack, her room mate from university has an idea on how determined Charlotte is:

"It's so inspiring see someone follow their dream. Watching Charlotte go from sitting in the living room deciding to direct a play at uni to watching her work in the National Theatre is amazing. 

“It's more than just innate skill (which she has), she's the most driven, dedicated and persuasive person I know."

The Forward Theatre

Charlotte’s company, The Forward Theatre project, produced its first play for York Theatre. After that they have done around two productions a year. 

“The transition from assisting director to a director is really hard and I don’t know how I would have done it without starting my own business,” Charlotte says adding that the contacts she made before starting her company helped her to take off. 

Her proudest moment was when the  she directed a play to the National Theatre, a one man’s dialogue show from David Bradley, called ‘On The Harmful Effects of Tobacco/Can Cause Death’.  

“At the time and remembers thinking ‘how on earth have I done this’,” she says.

The play was on for one night only and it was sold out, but for Charlotte, the best part was being able to work with such a prolific actor. Bradley also happens to be known for his performance in the Harry Potter movie series.

“My biggest relief in the first day of rehearsals was, because I was thinking that he is so amazing, how an earth.. you know.. what am I going to do here. 

“But actually, when we worked together, we really found that we got a lot from each other. It felt great.”

Unpaid internships

What Charlotte realised very soon, was that if she wanted to direct for a living, she needed to get as much experience as she could while still on student loan. She did several unpaid internships as an assistant editor, something Charlotte won’t tolerate easily in her own company.

“I had some really good times and some really bad times. I was sometimes paid ten pounds a week, living in London thinking ‘what am I doing, I have a degree’, but I learned from it. 

“Every single one of those jobs was paid of in some way. It either led to other work, or meeting somebody who was really exciting and I could work with, and it was all just really exciting.”

At the moment, Forward Theatre is working on a play called the Bird & Bay, which Charlotte is currently pitching to festivals for next summer. She is dividing her time between her own business and a company called Rush Tash, where she does freelance directing. They are currently working on a radical feminist play for the National Theatre. 

Find out more about The Forward Theatre Project, here.

Find out more about Charlotte:

-  Charlotte talking about the start of her career and how she got into directing:

- The story behind the Forward Theatre project and its future plans:

- Knowing what she knows now, what would Charlotte do differently and why her company will not work with unpaid people:

Find the trailer for 'On The Harmful Effects of Tobacco/Can Cause Death’ here:

Have your say: Is it beneficial to work for free or just free work force for companies to be able to not hire real people? Would you like to learn more about unpaid internships? Leave us a comment and we'll find out for you.

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More on the internship conversation.


By: Ida Aari

Infamous Internships

By Hannah Thompson

They have been described as exploitation and even slavery. They are the unfortunate rites of passage that most semi-professionals have to endure in the hope of getting ‘that’ opportunity. They are, for most post graduates, the only option available to ensure they can get their feet firmly in the door.”

That’s it, we’re talking about infamous internships and the fact they’re renowned for being especially bad in the ‘creative’ industry, with journalistic jobs, PR and Advertising agencies topping the bill.

According to CIPR statistics 49% of PR interns do not receive the National Minimum wage and a large percentage feel they can’t take “low-paying or unpaid internships” simply because they can’t afford it. 

After graduating with a first class honours degree, Millie Hughes, 24, decided to go into the world of advertising and found herself on a paid internship program which paid a mere $12,000 a year. After admitting to not wanting to settle into a “dead end admin job” she set her sights high, however she said that she found herself accepting such a low salary, because “most of the other roles were un-paid.”

“I’m not sure how they got away that salary, but I guess at the time there were mostly unpaid ones around in London so it was actually the best I could find: I wanted a decent job in the creative industry.”

After interning for 6 months, the novelty of the paid internship had completely worn off and Millie became frustrated because she was doing “the same work as people with a thirty-grand salary.”

“Even though I proved myself, I felt that there was almost a ‘stigma’ attached to the idea of being an intern. I got all the ‘shitty’ jobs – you name them, I did them.”

Millie finally left her intern and landed herself a job with another agency which thankfully, meant she was receiving a salary that she deserved.  

It seems that even though there is obvious exploitation happening in the industry, employers are still using interns to save budget, which really, is wrong.

Josh James, owner of an advertising company on Old Street, Shoreditch, admits to hiring graduates to do un-paid internships to “keep costs down.”

“It’s been this way for a long time, I did an apprenticeship for a company twenty years ago and was on awful money but that is what this field of work is like,” he said, insinuating that you can’t put a price on good work experience.

“Graduates come here to learn, we offer something that prepares young professionals for the real world and to be honest you can’t really put a price on that.”

Millie says she felt slightly ‘tricked’ into taking an internship, the idea was sold to her as “you won’t be the office bitch, you’ll be thrown in at the deep end.”

“I wanted to do more than make the tea and do photocopying, but I didn’t think it was right that I was doing a lot of real work for a lot of big clients. I was given too much responsibility.” 

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