Since I was three, my family
has always spent its summers attending free Shakespeare in Central
Park (Louisville, Kentucky). They have always been the best, most
original, and entertaining Shakespeare performances I've ever had the
pleasure of attending. When it came time for me to decide where I
wanted to do my final internship before entering the "real world,"
the choice was easy: Kentucky Shakespeare Festival, of course. Lucky
for me, I was accepted as an administrative intern there.
The Kentucky Shakespeare
Festival is the oldest of the six remaining free professionally acted
Shakespeare Festivals in North America. The Kentucky Shakespeare
Festival is not limited to its wonderful summer season. The festival
runs educational outreach programs under the title Will on Wheels.
They include artist-in-residency programs; Shakespeare Behind Bars, a
program that brings Shakespeare to inmates at Luther Luckett
Correctional Facility; and Shakespeare Alive!, a touring educational program that
goes into the schools. Shakespeare Alive! has toured all 120 counties in
Kentucky, along with parts of Ohio and Indiana, bringing the works of
Shakespeare to many children who would normally be denied the
manifest joys of live theater due to their regional placement and/or
economic disadvantage. While at the festival, I
answered phones, addressed envelopes, put together press packets,
bulk mailed, put labels on brochures, researched grants at the
library, wrote an application for a grant, and learned about
marketing. What was so wonderful about interning at the Kentucky
Shakespeare Festival was learning about how a theater operates on a
day-to-day basis. The dedication of the staff was awe inspiring--they
stayed late, skipped lunch, and even came in on weekends (or so I
heard), all of this in addition to working 8 am to 6 pm. One of the highlights of my
internship was being able to see a performance of Shakespeare Alive! at an inner-city middle school.
Carolyn and Doug, the actors who performed, were regulars at the
office, but there was such a change seeing them act. Their
interaction with the children was fantastic; they managed to get them
excited and talking. One of the children sitting up front compared
Twelfth
Night to a soap
opera, which--though offending some purists--was, from someone her
age, a realistic way of analyzing the play. When Carolyn and Doug
acted, they brought such freshness to the roles it was as if I had
never seen the plays acted before. The Kentucky Shakespeare
Festival does so much for its community and state. To learn more
about its educational outreach programs and its upcoming summer,
visit http://www.kyshakes.org.
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