Okay okay okay listen up!!
I am so excited about this summer.
I'm interning at a theatre that is near and dear to my heart, and I'm actually so glad that I've been able to build and maintain connections here. I became involved with this theatre when I did a professional show here last season. I knew that this held too many opportunities to throw away (even if they did require quite a bit of pursuing), so I kept it up and stayed involved. One of my castmates asked me if I was planning on applying to be a counselor at the camps during the summer. There are eleven (separate) weeks of camp at this theatre as part of the education program. There are about ten different groups each week, broken up into age groups. Each age group (well... it kind of goes lower elementary, upper elementary, middle school, high school) has different types of camps available, and anyways, it's a cool deal. There are about fourteen kids in each group, and each group is assigned to one intern. The interns are there for the entire summer. They don't always teach the same age group, and, near the end of the summer, they get to teach on their own.
The elementary aged camps have also have a counselor in their group. The counselors are high school kids who apply and are selected to be a right-hand man to the interns. They generally are only at one to three camps over the summer.
I was a counselor for two weeks last summer, and I absolutely admired the interns I was assigned to. I was actually way more enraptured by the guy I had the first week I was there... he worked with such purpose and charisma that I was honestly inspired to be my very best self 100% of the time. He's just one of those people who, once you've found them, you know you cannot afford to let go. He kind of made my world go round, and I'm so so lucky to still be in contact with him. He came to see a show I was in last semester (he was one of the only friends I told about the show, and I gave him one of my comp tickets) and I went to go see him in a devised piece at his university.
I could talk about him forever, but I'm off track.
Basically, now you see that I really really really really admired him and looked up to him. And I looked up to the intern I worked with the second week, too. These people were... wow! I just wanted to be like them, and I tried to hard to quickly learn from their ways.
This kind of fell into place perfectly. The lady named Kate was in charge of the counselors, and after my last day of camp, I shot her an email to thank her for the opportunity. Then, months later, as I was preparing for my audition for my university's theatre and dance department, I asked the director (of the show I was in) if he had any suggestions for acting coaches to help me with my audition pieces. He recommended Kate, and CC'ed her into the email. She quickly reached out to me, and we set up lesson times. She helped me so much. So much. But that's another story. Anyways, after I completed my lessons and was all ready for my audition, she asked me if I would be interested in interning for the winter break camps. There were two three day camps, and she wanted to know if I would intern... so I would get paid, have my own groups, just like the summer interns, but a little less would be expected from me, as I wouldn't have had the training that the summer interns get. So of course I jumped on the chance. Winter camps were great, and then I was invited back for a one day camp and then the spring break camps. The other interns for these camps were either high school seniors or other college freshmen... and summer interns have at least half their college career under their belt, if not all. Anyways, I'm actually the only person who was there for all four weeks of camp (and those were the only camps that there were during the school year). I'm not sure if others were invited to all, but turned down the offers... anyways, I was the only one there for all of it.
I'm breaking this into two posts. I didn't know I would end up explaining EVERYTHING hahaha....
