We Love Our Interns!

Every summer we take on an intern (or two) and enjoy watching them learn the ropes here at the Straz Center. They are usually conflicted by two profound emotions - How AWESOME it can be to work here and how BORING it can be to work here. Let's face it, we have Mary Poppins loading in even as we type this, yet that doesn't mean that those Club Jaeb flyers are going to go down to the photocopy machine and create themselves! We try to give them an honest view of both sides of our industry.

For a short period of time we have Intern L. She rocks a whole bunch and currently she is rocking a social media project that is going to put the Straz Center in a very good place in a very short period of time. So we like that lots. We asked Intern L. if she wouldn't mind sharing with you what it is like to be an intern here - this is what she submitted (and she was not paid to say how cool Kari G. is - we promise!).


As many of you may know, a senior’s last three weeks of high school tend to turn into something of a joke: Classes are winding down, AP exams are done, and you don’t even care because you already got into college! To rid their halls of teenagers affected with the potent “Senioritis”, and to give us a taste of what the real world is like, my school’s administrators came up with a creative, effective way of keeping us prep-school rabble-rousers out of trouble: Internships. So, every year when May comes around, the seniors of the school are rounded up and shipped off to prey upon businesses and offices all around Tampa Bay until graduation.

A lot of us are stuck working in the offices of mortgage brokers, or babysitting at our old schools, but some kids are lucky enough to land spots at places like Radio Disney, NBC, and, of course, the Straz Center. As you could probably tell by where you’re reading this blog, I was one of the lucky ones.

I’m proud to be my high schools’ resident “theater geek”. I’ve been in all of the school plays, and was even the Production Manager this year! (a.k.a. I got the director coffee and took notes). My iPod is full of Broadway musicals, and if you ask me about anything you think a normal teenager would know, like, “What is My Morning Jacket?” my answer will probably be, “A jacket your wear in the morning.” (If you’re like me and don’t know, it’s actually an American rock band known for their eclectic mix of music genres. See you just learned something new!). I’m also eager to learn about advertising and running a business (living the American Dream and all that good stuff), so the Straz Center’s marketing department was pretty much the perfect place for me to work for three weeks.

Now, you’re probably thinking “What on earth could anyone get done in just three weeks?” I’ll admit I was wondering that too, until Kari G. introduced me to this crazy thing called Social Media, which is all of the social networking sites (like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter etc.) that many companies use as marketing tools. However, there is no one place where someone can go and see what all the other major theaters in the country are doing with social media—until now.

Kari G. bequeathed upon me what we have come to call “The Mother of All Social Media Projects” and for the last week I have been compiling a data base for her and all the other fine folks at the Straz Center that has links the Facebook-esque pages and blogs of American theaters. Pretty cool, right?

However, the end of this internship is rapidly approaching, and before I’ll know it I will be off to the University of Central Florida in the fall (Go Knights!). Thanks to Kari I was fortunate enough to meet a successful UCF grad, Courtney M., the other day. As an aspiring performer, I’m ready to learn all I can about succeeding in theater. Kari and Courtney gave me valuable insights and tips that will definitely be of use to me in the next few years.

As a recap: I’m a crazy theater fanatic doing an awesome internship with the lovely Kari G. at the fantastic Straz Center, and then I’m going to college, and then who knows what?

Wish me luck!

Wonderland Intern Opportunities

There are internships and then there are INTERNSHIPS.

We all know the difference.

An internship is an opportunity to put something related to your major on a resume and spend a summer filing, filling coffee cups and spending too much time on Facebook.

An INTERNSHIP is an opportunity to pinch-yourself-constantly-step-away-from-the-situation-ask-yourself-how-you-got-this-lucky-and-absorb-every-moment-of-the-awesomeness-that-surrounds-you.

We have INTERNSHIPS to announce!

TBPAC is seeking several INTERNS for the world premiere musical, Wonderland: Alice’s New Musical Adventure. The music for Wonderland is by Frank Wildhorn, the composer of The Civil War and Jekyll & Hyde, with book and lyrics by Jack Murphy and Gregory Boyd. Gregory Boyd, artistic director of Houston’s Alley Theatre, will direct.

The INTERNSHIP opportunities include production assistants, assistants to the musical director, set designer, video and projection designer, costume designer, lighting designer and administrative interns.

The INTERNSHIPS are for six weeks beginning in October and ending on December 5. The INTERNSHIPS are for credit and may include a small stipend at the end.

These INTERNSHIPS will allow for hands on experience in creating a new Broadway musical and all members of the creative team have had experience of working on Broadway. Each INTERN will gain a wealth of knowledge and will be listed in the Centerbill program.

Take a trip down the rabbit hole. Spend some time in Wonderland. But remember - this is not for the faint of heart. Alice and the Cheshire Cat sum it up best in the original Lewis Carroll story:

Alice: But I don't want to go among mad people.

The Cat: Oh, you can't help that. We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.

Alice: How do you know I'm mad?

The Cat: You must be. Or you wouldn't have come here.

Are you ready to work hard, watch the insanity of putting up a Broadway show and learn from the best? Are you ready to be a Wonderland INTERN?

Then go here.

Good luck!

- Kari G.

Thoughts from the marketing intern

Ashley Thomas has been with us for a few weeks now, though she still doesn't have a proper name tag (unless her parents were cruel enough to dub her VISITOR), and so she's gained some insight into arts marketing and our good ol' TBPAC. Here are some of her thoughts:

Honestly, I came into this internship as a series of unrelated coincidences.

Ultimately, I stumbled across in on their website while I was dutifully verifying that the tickets for the Lion King had not gone on sale yet. I ended up with the best internship that I have had to date.

I have never been more eager to go to work (especially since it’s unpaid) and I learn something new every day. I can hardly believe that I get to walk by pieces of the My Fair Lady set or stand on Carol Morsani Hall. Most days, I can not believe that I am so fortunate that I have an internship in such an interesting place. So, for the sake of making this less of an ode to my internship, I have developed a list of the Top 20 Things I’ve Learned While Interning at the TBPAC:

• The Rehearsal Hall is the same dimensions as Carol Morsani Hall’s stage to allow the performers to mark.
• The cardboard cutouts in Ferguson Hall and Carol Morsani Hall windows may seem innocuous but they make very poor and space-consuming cubicle-fellows. (Sorry Brian Regan.)
• Advertising a show is extremely expensive.
• If you read the show descriptions, there are things that are interesting outside of the Broadway series. (Crazy, I know.)
• The appeal of the Radio City Rockettes draws more of a crowd than the legal drama of Twelve Angry Men
• Radio commercials are harder to write than TV commercials because they are longer and there is no visual to help—you’re on your own.
• People are crazy about Menopause The Musical. Maybe that’s just odd to a college student.
• The Lion King will require Carol Morsani Hall to be temporarily remodeled.
• Sometimes the small shows are the most fun (Rest In Peace, Hurlyburly)
• Everything is in constant flux.
• Opera is the new cool thing in Tampa.
• They still do fire drills.
• Excel is life and the copy machine is your friend.
• Marketing uses an ungodly amount of paper
• The Marketing Department is small so everyone works really hard to get a show advertised and they are all really good at what they do.
• The electronic marquee is run by Tampa’s most ancient computer (just kidding, but it really is the thing of legends.)
• Patel Conservatory’s “Make Your Own Musical” program is such a cool idea (I’d never heard of it).
• Ferguson Hall is the size of a Broadway Hall.
• Velcro signage, while a great theoretical design idea, loses its practicality in the Florida heat.
• TBPAC employs the nicest and most fun people I have ever worked with and it is truly a wonderful place to intern.

So, unbeknownst to me, I have stumbled across the best learning experiences that I have had. I have learned so much about Marketing and the processes behind a Broadway show that I can hardly believe it has only been just over a month.

I never considered working in the marketing department of a theater, but now that I am doing it and loving every minute of it I may reconsider. At any rate, I am totally sold on the idea of Event/Entertainment marketing.

This internship has helped reiterate why I love my major and generated more of passion for what I want to do than I had before. It’s amazing (and I’m not just saying that because I want tickets to The Lion King).