The Center of it All

From Michelle, Education Intern

I work in a small, windowless office just down the hall from the main administrative offices of Seattle Rep. Our Education Department is often missing people; we are a department full of teachers, writers, event-planners, and parents, and you can’t do all of that from the office. On days when I am not teaching (and especially on days when the arts are not recognized in the economic stimulus package), it can be hard to feel like a part of the world outside of our department. Other days when I am in the classroom, when students are at the Rep, or when we are working on a big teacher training event, it feels like I’m at the center of the world.

We have recently started our biggest project of the year – the Drama Intensive class at The Center School High School. Class is divided into three phases. Phase 1 is happening now, before we go on mid-winter break next week. Our goals are to get to know the students, build the ensemble together, and gather lots of writing for Andrea, our playwright. She will begin writing the script for this show – an adaptation of Hamlet – over break after sifting through many pages of high-school student writing. We move into Phase 2 during the month of March, when we will be spending five weeks learning about Hamlet, discussing Shakespeare, and cutting our teeth on some advanced acting and design lessons. Spring Break happens at the end of March, and then we come back in April to jump into Phase 3: play production. We will have a complete original script by then, have a class divided into acting and design students, and only six weeks to rehearse and transform the Poncho forum before performing this show for the entire Center School and other friends of the Rep.

I am particularly excited about this project because I get to work closely with Beverly and Scott, two fabulous teaching artists and staff in the EDU department. We brainstorm ideas for class and work together to craft a curriculum that gives these students a professional experience performing new work. I am particularly excited to work with students in the design portion of the class. This year we will not be in the proscenium Leo K space, but in the black-box Poncho, opening the door to a whole world of opportunities for creative transformation.

In my spare time, I’m also working on creating some materials for our Teaching Artist Training Lab coming up in March, as well as running our second-to-last student matinee for The Road to Mecca. I also hold a couple of other odd jobs, which are pretty easy to do with the Education Internship. My hours at the Rep are a pretty regular 9-5, plus an evening or weekend here and there, so I also work as administrative assistance for a small arts nonprofit nearby, and I teach a theater seminar at the UW.

Sound like a lot of work? It is, but it’s a good year to be an intern. Unlike everyone else in the world, I have a steady job until June, and I'm also getting paid to learn a whole bunch about regional theatre during an interesting and transforming time in history. And I figure that while I’m here and not responsible for much outside of continuing to pay rent, I may as well be at the center of it all.