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“A lot of times when you stage manage, you will at some point stage manage at a Shakespeare company or on a Shakespeare show; it’s kind of like a rite of passage."
Dana is doing this theatrical “rite of passage” abroad in the Czech Republic. Her work through her CEA Prague internship this summer is very hands-on and looks different each day. One day, she’s filming fight scenes for the actors to review later and another day she’s keeping time to make sure rehearsal is running right on the director’s intended schedule.
In her Skype interview prior to arriving in Prague, her internship supervisor learned about her interest in stage management and offered her some hands-on experience: the opportunity to stage manage a few shows at the company this summer. Dana is currently an Assistant Stage Manager on King Lear, and she’s looking forward to being the head Production Stage Manager on an upcoming show.
This hands-on experience is the perfect stepping-stone for Dana’s future career, and she’s made connections she could have never found at home.
“The PSC has very different networks than the people that I know. My supervisor could open up a lot of doors for me,” Dana says. She’s so thankful that CEA connected her to an internship that perfectly matched her interests and aspirations and challenged her to develop new skills.
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“For me, being able to say that I had to go to a different country where we don’t have a space that’s our own, we have to rent things, and we have to work with companies that don’t speak English, that poses more challenges than working at home would, and that is more admirable to someone who’s hiring you...it shows that you're flexible…you have to get creative and I think that’s really cool,” Dana says.
ABOUT DANA:
Dana is a Business Administration major and Theatre minor at Montclair State University in New Jersey. She is pursuing a career in stage management and hopes to work on Broadway shows one day.
INTERNSHIP PLACEMENT:
The Prague Shakespeare Company (PSC) is a primarily English-speaking organization that has shows, workshops, and other events that perform, celebrate, and promote the works of the playwright William Shakespeare.
Eliza Jason is a CEA Alumni and Onsite Ambassador who studied abroad in Prague, Czech Republic, during the Spring 2017 semester. She is a graduate of Point Loma Nazarene University.