Overview:
University of Denver theatre interns are paid to build sets for top Colorado companies while gaining valuable real-world experience.
While some students head home for winter break, University of Denver technical theatre interns head to the scene shop. Instead of resting, they spend their breaks getting paid a professional rate to build full-scale sets for professional theatre companies across the Denver metro area as part of DU’s Theatre Tech Internship Program.
Senior theatre major and tech intern Ruby Gregerson returned from winter break and went straight into another packed production calendar.
“We are currently working on ‘Medea’ and ‘Into the Woods’ as our departmental shows,” Gregerson said, “and our outside shows are ‘Birthday Candles’ at Curious Theatre, ‘Die Fledermaus,’ the opera for Lamont School of Music and then also ‘Furlough’s Paradise’ for Curious Theatre as well.”
Although DU interns do the bulk of their build work during academic breaks, they continue working on professional projects throughout the semester as well. Interns built these entire productions from start to finish for $20 per hour and some resume pizazz. They dock, loade and assemble the sets at the venues and then return on closing night to strike the set they created.
Some of the productions they are most proud of include “Confederates” with Curious Theatre Company, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” with Phamaly Theatre Company and “School of Rock” with Veritas Productions at Parker Arts.
The founder of this program is Steven McDonald, DU’s longtime technical director. McDonald started the internship program after seeing how tech students were unable to participate in summer tech internships due to the university’s quarter system.
“We go to school until June, so our folks couldn’t go (participate in outside summer programs) because they couldn’t meet the contract requirements,” McDonald said. “They had to do finals and stuff like that, so we really built the intern program to replace the experience that you would have going to an outside place.”
What started with a collaboration with Phamaly Theatre in 2016 has grown into a citywide pipeline between DU and professional companies. In the past 18 months alone, DU interns have helped build sets for more than 20 productions for a variety of local theatre companies.
“The internship is great at that, which is getting them to places where they can go and move on to the next step beyond this, whether it is grad school or a professional job,” McDonald said. He points to former interns now working in scenic shops, teaching, designing nationally, and even doing corporate entertainment work for major events.
“Sophie just got her MFA in scene design; she graduated from the University of Kentucky, Lexington,” McDonald said. “Aspen works in the scene shop at the Arvada Center right now. Anshu teaches right now, but he has designed in New York City, Santa Fe Opera and giant, giant concerts. And Chris used to work for Cirque du Soleil; he now has a job doing corporate entertainment. He likes doing the Super Bowl.”
Life as a tech theatre intern isn’t easy. Students regularly balance 12-hour production days with coursework. During breaks, interns work four days a week, seven hours a day in the shop.
“I’ve been doing it for the last four years, and it’s something that I really enjoyed,” Gregerson said. “I just love being able to see an idea and a vision, especially a designer’s vision, which can be so grandiose and so intricate, come to life in a really physical way, and being able to know the processes to make those things happen is just really satisfying.”
The university’s BA program forces its students to participate in all the disciplines of theatre before deciding on a specific track. The program’s goal is to produce well-rounded performers all equipped with skills in set, costume, lighting, sound design and construction. Gregerson, along with many of her peers, initially joined the university’s BA program to act but quickly realized her talents expand far beyond center stage.
“I’m also a sound designer and an actor,” Gregerson said. “I’m the Witch in ‘Into the Woods’ in our upcoming season. I’m also a director; I just produced a staged reading here at the University as well. I’m able to communicate with all different kinds of people who have specialties in all different kinds of things.”
Fellow intern Matthew Spanton discovered his interest in carpentry during a freshman shop class. “I started really enjoying carpentry so I thought it (internship) was a good goal to work towards,” Spanton said. “Eventually I was skilled enough that they hired me.”
Now Spanton acts as a TA during the academic year, a requirement of all interns, and serves as the assistant set designer for ‘Medea.’
“Our interns end up being our technical assistants and our TAs for class, and they’re the team leaders,” McDonald said. “We like having the shop TAs be interns in the summer because that translates into smarter people and better mentors and better partners and better leaders for our academic teams.”
This spring, the interns are also building Alice in Wonderland for St. Mary’s Academy. “The girls don’t really like to build their sets,” Gregerson said, laughing, “so they have us build their sets and then they like to paint them. It’s fun to have people not used to having professional sets get them.”
Gregerson and Spanton are two of three aspiring working professionals currently enrolled in the program. There are three active interns right now, compared to six over the winter. McDonald notes that they hire based on the number of shows and the budget available, but during busier seasons, such as the summer, they have had up to ten interns.
Although he is unsure of the total number of students who have completed the program, he is aware that those who have participated will graduate having worked in various professional environments multiple times a year for at least four years. That real-life work experience distinguishes DU students from their peers and makes them valuable in whatever career path they choose.
“One of my goals was to build a program where everyone had tool training,” McDonald said. “Everyone could — this is one of the big ones for me — go and get jobs in tech, and that was a big part of it … but so many of our students have multiple goals, and so professional development is helping them get a job in psychology or math or something like that, because they’re not going to continue to do theater, but they’re going to use those skills.”
