Long-Term Vision
The idea for this newfangled theatre program evolved over several years of thinking about my experiences in theatre education - both my own experiences, and those of the students I worked with after graduating. I got a great education in the School of Drama at Carnegie Mellon, but there was one experience that stands out above all the others:
The summer after my junior year of college, I spent six weeks in Edinburgh, Scotland, as part of a joint program between Carnegie Mellon and Queen Margaret’s University in Edinburgh. We took 10 students and two faculty from CMU, and together with 5 students and several staff members at Queen Margaret’s, we designed, built, rehearsed and performed a show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
The best thing about the whole experience - aside from just being in Edinburgh - was that I was able to commit mysef full-time to stage managing, without the distractions of classes and homework, while still having that safety net of an educational environment around me. For the six weeks that we were in Edinburgh, we kept a professional theatre schedule, collaborating on our work and managing the production entirely on our own - but we still had our faculty advisors to turn to when we needed them.
Since then, I’ve come to realize that not many theatre students ever have the chance to do something like that - both because of the small number of opportunities that exist, and also because of the financial and logistical difficulties of leaving their own universities to participate in an internship program. My goal here is to develop a program that would give more students the opportunity - and ability - to take part in a truly collaborative, professional production as a part of their theatre education.
Like the concept? Check out what we’re working on:
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