Lead Yourself From Experience: Abby Young
We’ve had the privilege of working with many incredible women over the years, including the wonderful Abby Young.
Abby joined our Women Leaders South West programme in 2021 and piloted her long-term ambition; to showcase artists from Traveller, Gypsy and Roma communities in a year-long programme of events and workshops. She is now completing a Clore Pulse Leadership programme and setting herself some career-long commitments.
Abby has learnt a great deal about working in the arts, working through setbacks and making the most of all the exciting and unexpected experiences along the way. She has kindly shared them with us in her own words.
Lead yourself from experience
At 16 I left school and went to college, but it wasn’t what I had hoped it would be. A lot of people on the course didn’t want to be there and I felt like I wasn’t being challenged. I became very unwell with an eating disorder and I didn’t know what my next step could be – starting at another college didn’t feel like an option.
When I was at my lowest a friend of mine offered some advice. “Think of all the energy you are putting into being unwell. Imagine if you channelled that into what you wanted to do – think how successful you could be.” And that was enough for me to start off with a small step change, I moved colleges. It was the best decision I could have made, and I soon came to realise that it wasn’t ‘starting again’ – I was leading myself from experience.
Find the right opportunity for you
Towards the end of my time at college one of my tutors, Rachel Maddix, pulled me to one side and said, “You are auditioning for drama school, aren’t you?”. I hadn’t even considered this as an option, and the auditions were nearly over for the year’s intake. I quickly booked a few auditions, but none of them were successful.
A few weeks passed, and I received a letter offering me a place to study Theatre at university. My mum read the letter, and instead of being happy that I had secured a place, ripped it up and said, “No, Abby. I know what you want and this isn’t it. You are going to drama school.” She was right.
Feeling absolutely terrified, I declined the university place and took a year out, working at Sainsbury’s while I planned my next move. I used the time to explore my options and narrowed it down to one place that I felt really resonated with me and my ambitions as a creative. I had already auditioned for this school the previous year, but I reauditioned and was awarded a place the same day, along with a scholarship and two bursaries. I could barely believe it. I hadn’t even been offered a reserve place the first time, and now my instinctive belief that this was the place for me was confirmed.
Choose the criticisms you take on
The next three years of my life are a bit of a blur, and I can scarcely remember the details. Drama school was tough, and I had underestimated how emotionally strong I needed to be to get through it. At the end of second year a director said to me “Abby, some people fly when they reach their 3rd year of drama school, but you will not.” Even writing that now, I understand why so much of those three years have been blotted from my mind. Despite what that director had said, I had an incredible third year of drama school; the feedback from my final shows was supportive and strong, which felt incredible after the slating I had received a just a few months earlier.
Work towards a sustainable career
After graduating I quickly realised that I hadn’t learned how to run myself as a business.
I took various casual acting jobs at attractions around London, including the London Bridge Experience, where I met Jo Bowis (Medieval Baebes). We both auditioned for a corporate show at the Vaults which cancelled on the day we opened; they did a Watchdog episode about this company which I’m sure you could find with some clever Googling. After months of rehearsal and no pay we were all left feeling pretty upset, and this led to me asking Jo Bowis if she wanted to set up a theatre company with me.
We workshopped many different ideas and landed on modern Victorian comedy music hall. With that, ‘Tiny Wallops’, was formed. Our very first show was at the George Tavern, and with an excellent bit of luck, the booker from Wiltons Music Hall was there. They loved the show and asked us to be the resident company at their venue with the agreement that we would take the profits from the doors, and they took the bar. Our shows were total sell-outs and we all felt incredibly lucky. However, all our hard work amounted to around £400 each. The small financial returns meant that we all had to seek extra work, and so it wasn’t sustainable long term, and inevitably more lucrative employment took precedence. Much to our sadness, our Tiny Wallops troupe ceased production.
All experiences give you skills
Working as a booker for walkabouts/shows for Secret Garden Party, Glade, and Wilderness, gave me a view into the alternative theatre scene, and I loved it. I made some great connections with other artists who were thriving in the arts industries, but in a different way to what I had seen previously.
In between walkabout gigs I gained some experience in management which would serve me well in the future. I managed an escape room attraction in Bank, managed the front-of-house team at Damian Hirst’s art gallery in London, and managed a sales team at the Shard. It was then that I encountered perhaps the biggest landmark in my life so far – I became pregnant, and my partner and I left London for Somerset.
Play on your strengths
After having our first baby I was determined to continue my career in the arts. My partner, Richard Young, and I sat down and looked at our combined skill set. We are both performers, which was a great start. I had a huge amount of experience in business and management, and Richard is a writer – a really good one at that. We realised that our combined skills were a great foundation for a performance/theatre company. With that, Tall Tails Theatre Company was born. We started out with what I knew best – walkabout. My background in booking walkabouts really helped me to understand what was fun, visual, and highly commercial. From walkabout, we were able to create three shows and a digital film, all supported by Arts Council funding.
Commit when you’re ready
A huge milestone for me was doing the year mentorship on the Women’s Leaders South West (WLSW) initiative, I became an associate artist of the Arts Development Company. This played an essential role in restoring the confidence that the pandemic had zapped from me, and it gave me time and space to reflect on my next steps. Another fantastic part of WLSW was the opportunity to book Lauren Curries’ ‘Upfront’ course, which honestly changed my life.
I made two commitments to myself after WLSW:
To attend the Women of the World WOW festival each year.
To join a course each year that furthers my learning and development.
And as such, I am about to conclude a Clore Pulse Leadership course. My ambition from this is to find ways to support my cultural campaign work with the charity Kushti Bok supporting Gypsies and Travellers, with the determined vision that Traveller culture and history is embraced, understood and authentically represented in the stories that we hear and tell.