I am one who is hard working and love keeping busy. And I am always proud to have a job that is secure and pays me. However Honestly the only good thing about the job was two things. One that I was very very lucky to have been put on a team with such kind and talented people who weren’t afraid to speak out as well, which I will come back too in a second. And the second thing was that we got lucky with where we were touring. We did see Rome for a full afternoon and were staying in one place where we weren’t too far from Florence. But all of that came with moving accommodations every 1 - 3 days. Be prepared for continuous accommodation moves with long drives in between and less than two hours to explore before having to be up at the crack of dawn to check out, go to a school and crack on. We were ducked pay for days off, unpaid bank holidays and even if we were moving accommodations there was no extra pay. This was all failed to be mentioned in our contracts. Lastly I’m one to get on with things and do a job without complaining. However, they put us in a black mouldy flat for three weeks and expected us to deal with it because ‘everyone in Italy has black mould’ apparently. I got really ill and because this is an intense job with performing three - four shows a days with teaching workshops after each show, being ill makes it really difficult. And worst of all there’s no back up plan to when people get ill. Like I said I never normally complain or moan at work because I like keeping busy and being proud to have a secure job. But if you want to tour around Italy, you’re better off paying out of your own pocket than working for Bell Beyond.

They don’t set you up for success. They advertise it as an acting job but you are doing way more teaching. The production value is just awful. Shein Costumes, props that break, party city type of wigs, etc. Their housing for rehearsals had serious black mold and the owners told us “every home in Italy has mold” but every single person in the house got sick because of it. Never took any of our concerns seriously and told us we just had to deal with it. My biggest warning to anyone is that they are cheapskates. Advertised at $300 a week, but that’s the base rate for working “a full work week” aka having a school book you all 5 days. If you have one day that there aren’t any bookings, they dock pay. They also don’t tell you that they take taxes out even though you are a volunteer “being reimbursed” for your time. If you have a holiday when schools are closed, docked pay. The conditions are brutal, driving average 4-5 hours every two days. They claim to pay for food, they don’t. They give $450 for 4 people for 6 weeks of tour. It’s impossible to do any cooking because you’re constantly in hotel rooms & not provided with any way of keep food cold to transport, so all of it goes bad. They don’t train you well for the teaching parts, even though it is 80% of the job. Including a whole week where we didn’t perform AT ALL and were separated from each other to teach a FULL school day. They have no back up plans for when we get sick. And we all got sick A LOT because we were required to touch/play/hug the students. They “teach” you how to drive manually. Three weeks, with two lessons a week. None of the drivers were prepared. We thought we would be given a van to carry everything, they gave us a small compact car and told us that we had to live out of back packs for 6 weeks because there wasn’t enough room for our stuff. So all fours of us and all of our stuff and allow of the tour stuff with tetris into the car every single day. Then when we tried to have an adult and professional conversation about pay and conditions, they threatened to kick us or not pay us. They asked us to go beyond the government official rules of how long we were allowed to be in Italy on a tourist visa or didn’t advise us in advance how long we were allowed to be in their country. Truthfully the way they do work is illegal, and you’re lucky if the authorities don’t question you.