First Week

I'm finishing up my first week at my internship. It's been a kind of slow week so far. Morgan and I have been going through the collection of plays, marking which ones we're missing, organizing them and creating a catalog so that teachers can search for a play based on number of pages, number of characters, or gender of characters. It's a little tedious, but we're already making a lot of progress. Things are about to pick up though, so we won't have as much time to work on that project.

Tonight and tomorrow I'm going to go to auditions for Midsummer; Daniel told me today that I'm going to be the official assistant stage manager, but I think I'll probably have a student ASM working with me as well.

Today I was also able to go out with Daniel and Morgan to hear the Mayor of Davenport, and some other people speak about the different federal accreditations that are going on, one of which is the Parks and Recreation Department, which include Junior Theatre. Davenport is going to be one of the first cities in the US to have police, fire, parks, and public works department all nationally accredited as well as having the library accredited on the state level. It was very exciting to see this happen, get to meet some of the supervisors of the parks and recreation department, as well as have a conversation with Daniel and Morgan about the positives and negatives of running a theatre associated with parks and rec. We talked about the freedom of starting your own theatre company, but the hassle it can be, and how nice it is that the parks and rec help make sure that everything is running, looking nice and taken care of.

I'm still waiting to get more information on the summer camps. I'm still hoping I can help out, and possibly teach the second week, to get more experience and a little more money. Summer classes don't start for a few weeks, but I've managed to sit in on one of the Spring classes still going on. It was a 5-6 year old acting class. They're currently preparing for their final showcase in which they'll all put on a show together. All of the different classes participate, so I'll be able to sit in on the dress rehearsals and see how all the different age groups differ in their shows. I was amazed at how well the 5 and 6 year olds were able to memorize their lines and perform really well. It will interesting to see if anything changes when they leave their classroom and get onto the big stage for dress rehearsal next week.

I keep forgetting to take pictures, but I'll be sure to take some soon of the little corner of filling cabinets Morgan and I have been confined too, as well as the theatre and the acting studios in the cottages. It's really a beautiful theatre, so I can't wait to share it with you. More information to follow on auditions and the summer camps. I also found out that Junior Theatre is going to be putting on a Folk Festival, which is very exciting for me. I've attended two folk festivals in Chicago and can't wait to see what Junior Theatre has planned and get involved. Thanks for reading!