Emil's sacrifices are paying off

 by Meg Rayner

When you want to make it in the entertainment industry, you have to be prepared to make sacrifices.

Emil Freund has spent months working without pay as a volunteer director with the BLOC Theatre Company.

He said it had given him invaluable experience and a greater desire to work in the industry, "I want to get as much experience as I can," Emil said, "because of the way the performance industry is, you have to be prepared to work for nothing, just for the experience of it."

Emil is studying a Creative Arts Industry course part-time at Victoria University in Melbourne and suppliments his income working at Sovereign Hill.

He has been involved with BLOC on stage and behind the scenes since he was 12 years old and recently started getting more involved in the production side of things.  The 19-year-old was assistant director and production manager for Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat.

Last year, he worked with a friend to present BLOC with an opportunity to produce a show with a difference. "For so long now, BLOC has been doing a big senior show, with a cast of 40, and a big junior show in a smaller venue," he said. "A friend of mine and myself thought it was time for a change. Late 2007 we went to BLOC with a proposal about creating a smaller boutique production, with a small cast of just 8 members."

And so Emil and his friend co-directed I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change, a play put on in a small venue, with limited performances, at a rather cheaper cost than BLOC's other productions.

"We wanted to keep it simple and let the play speak for itself," he said

The venture was so successful that he was chosen to direct Spelling Bee, which had a short season in February. "The opportunity arose and I grabbed it," he said, "I learnt a lot from that and that's experience and ideas that will hold me in good stead for the rest of my career."