Digging Out

Notes from the desk of Christy Denny, Literary Intern

I work best when I’m organized. But when life gets crazy, organization is the first to go..and I have to admit that things have gotten a little crazy lately. I realized recently that it looked like a tsunami had hit my poor little intern desk. So it was time to reorganize. To fill you in on what my first two months as the Literary Intern have been like, here’s a look at the various artifacts I cleaned:

“The Art of Quartet Playing: The Guarneri Quartet in Conversation with David Blum” and “A Handbook of Music Terms”: My first week or so, I researched for Opus. This is our first show on the Leo K stage this season, and it’s about a successful string quartet. As a musical neophyte, I dove into the classical music world, learning everything from “What does ‘allegro’ mean?” (told you, neophyte right here) to “How much money does a successful quartet make?” (Hint: More than I do). I then put all of this info (and more!) into a 25ish page dramaturgical packet that I gave to the actors at the first rehearsal.

Tech Schedule for The 39 Steps: But wait! Before Opus began rehearsals, we opened our first show on the Bagley Wright stage, The 39 Steps. I had a ball assisting director Maria Aitken and tour director Nevin Headley, who are two talented, accomplished, warm artists. This production is the tour of the Broadway show. It premiered at La Jolla Playhouse, but the company did tweaking and tech rehearsals at the Rep. I assisted Maria and Nevin for about two weeks: taking notes, reminding them of what they wanted to rehearse, etc. They are both fabulous, the show is fabulous, and the actors are fabulous—therefore, this experience was fabulous.

A Notebook of Many, Many, Many Opus Notes: Two days after The 39 Steps opened, rehearsals for Opus began. I assisted my super-talented supervisor Braden Abraham as he directed. It was so much fun to be in the room discussing the play with Braden and the wonderful actors, watching the actors try new things, and taking mine and Braden’s notes during runs and previews.

Various books on William Shakespeare and King James I: Woah. How do we go from The 39 Steps to quartets to 17th century England? Because our next production is Equivocation, which revolves around Shakespeare and the politics of James’s court. I excitedly indulged my “I’m a nerd for history” side by writing some articles for the various publications that go out to audiences.

Scripts. Lots and lots of scripts: I know. Shocking. The literary intern has a lot of scripts. And being a Nerd, I love it. What’s exciting is the breadth of scripts I’ve read—they tackle almost every subject in almost every genre by writers from all over the country. I love being in the rehearsal room so much, but I also love the days when I say, “Hey, I’m going to go to a café and read.”

So there you have it. The library books have been returned, the papers and notes are filed, and the scripts are in organized piles. My desk looks relatively sane.

…………for now……………..