5 Mins with Chloe Ashley | Deputy Production Manager
28 Feb 2025
- Can you tell us your job title and a bit about what you do?
I’m BOVs Deputy Production Manager and my job is to coordinate all the technical and backstage elements of the show, for our own productions that means working with the creatives to help realise their visions. And for visiting work I have to reach out to those comps and gather all the tech info needed to put the show on and feed that down to our team, plus lots of budgets and all that fun stuff!
- How did you get into it?
I didn’t train in Production Management – I did a history degree at Uni and really got into theatre through the extra curricula stuff at Uni, Anyone could do backstage stuff or performing in all the plays and musicals we did there. I did all the student backstage stuff which I really enjoyed and decided that I wanted to work in theatre. I graduated during COVID and moved to London and started doing freelance Stage Management when theatre was up and running, Because a lot of the Stage Managers had left the industry, I was giving roles I may not have been experienced enough to take on in normal times which meant I learned a lot very quickly. Also as a lot of the jobs were small scale I picked up quite a few responsibilities I later found out were PM responsibilities and they turned out to be the part of the job I enjoyed the most – so I moved over to Prod Management instead, did some freelance work, and then the job at BOV came up!
- Any advice you’d give to young women who want to go into this career?
I would say build and use your network – especially when you’re freelance. It can be isolating and Production Managing can be quite daunting as you have so much responsibility on your shoulders. The Health & Safety aspects of shows especially. It’s important to ask for help and guidance – don’t feel like you have to do everything by yourself, as if you have to prove yourself. I definitely learnt that the hard way. A good PM can see not only where their own skills are but also when it’s better for the whole project to delegate to the people who have specific skills to take the lead.
- Have you ever come across any inequality in this industry and how did you deal with it? (are things improving?)
I would say definitely I’ve felt some inequality-in the same way you do in everyday life. Nothing super obvious but for example when I was Stage Managing I found there could be a lack of respect at points from some of the older, male company members – things like turning up late etc It could be difficult establishing your authority as the person running that room.
100% loading and unloading trucks is a great example too – people assume you can’t carry something – don’t get me wrong – sometimes I can’t carry things, but it’s up to me to make that call rather than someone else taking something off you and assuming I’ll have a problem.
My advice would always be you have to trust yourself and be confident in yourself. Know when to ask for help and when to stand up for yourself and be the one to set your limits. I don’t know if things are improving in general terms, but for me working at BOV where there’s a team you work with all the time is better than freelance where every 3 weeks you’re on a new project and have to re-prove what your capable of. That can be tough.
- What do you think the sector could do to improve access for everyone?
Education and informing people is important. I didn’t even know what a Production Manager was until I started working in the industry. Opportunities are needed too – it’s nice the production placements we’ve had in the last 2 years have both been women. It takes time for old views about how things should work and run to gradually change.
