Summer 2011 Report From Current Students and Alumni
- Tierra Bonser spent the first month of summer in London as part of the theatre and literature program inaugurated by Emerson this year. Taking classes in the day and seeing theatre at night, she saw many wonderful plays, all of which have served to expand her ideas about her own work. Among her favorites were Silence by Filter, a Royal Shakespeare Company production, The Four Stages of Cruelty based on Hogarth’s engravings by a small 8-person group called Simple8, and Macbeth by the RSC in Stratford Upon Avon. After returning home, she spent time with her family, worked on two summer classes and has been working on ideas for a type of “one-on-one” theatre experience in Boston based on the work of the Battersea Art Center outside of London.
- Christina Manzo spent summer as a Special Collections Literary Internship at Chawton House Library in Chawton, England. The Chawton Staff are some of the leading experts in protofemenist texts ranging from 1600-1830: “As it turns out, librarians and dramaturgs have much more in common than I had previously realized. In the literary world, they simply call it by another name. What we call ‘dramaturgy’, they call a study of New Historicism (a literary theory that requires the examination of texts in their historical and cultural contexts).
- Nick Medvescek spent summer as a management intern in the Allen Lee Hughes Fellowship & Internship Program at Arena Stage in Washington, DC. He was responsible for analyzing and synthesizing the company’s strategic planning history, compiling the organic data into a functional report for senior staff and Trustees to use as a tool in future long-range planning. The finished report is being distributed to Board members as part of the reading list for the upcoming fall retreat. Additionally, Nick read new plays for the literary department and helped out Operations by occasionally manning the stage door. In August, Nick returned to Tucson for two weeks where he was asked to speak as a panelist at a “Theater and Diversity” forum for county court employees. Fellow panelists included Robert Encila, Artistic Director of Studio Connections, and Alida Wilson-Gunn, Education and Outreach Coordinator for Borderlands Theatre Company.
- Justine Spingler (10) works full time as the Operations Assistant at The Road Company in New York. The company books the national tours of various Broadway shows including Wicked, Billy Elliot, Rain, Rock of Ages, Sister Act, and Catch Me If You Can.
- Amanda Coffin (10) was selected to attend the first ever Playwrights’ Commons Freedom Art Theatre Retreat this summer. She spent a week with ten other Boston theatre artists (dramaturgs, playwrights, and designers) in the woods of New Hampshire for the sole purpose of creating new, “locally-grown” theatre. Amanda recently directed the New England premiere of iLove for Boston Stage Company and directed a one-woman show on the life of Zelda Fitzgerald, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wife. This fall she serves as dramaturg for Metro Stage’s production of Chicago and is script-reading for a number of companies in Boston.
Anne G. Morgan (09) After three summers in various roles in the Literary Office at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, Anne is now on staff as the Literary Associate, where she provides dramaturgical support to all of the center’s conferences and assists with the management of the selection processes (about 1,300 applications). She is also an adjunct professor at the University of Connecticut teaching Script Analysis.
- Melanie Guthrey (10) interned with the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Theater Festival from May to September, 2010. In January 2011, she became a new Executive Director at the Etowah Arts Commission in Etowah, TN. In this position, she is handling grants, website, community relations, and office tasks.
