Ars Nova, New York, NY
This summer, I had the opportunity to be the production management intern at Ars Nova, a non-profit off-Broadway theatre in New York City. What really drew me to this organization is its commitment to everything new and exciting: Ars Nova is a place dedicated to develop and launch artists in the early stages of their careers. Before this internship, I saw two of their previous shows: KPOP and The Lucky Ones. Watching those shows, I was blown away by the ways Ars Nova pushes the boundary of traditional performance and the stories they were telling. So this summer, I was thrown into everything that we were doing as part of the Production Management department and I learned so much from the work we did and from the other interns and staff members.
The first thing we did this summer was our yearly All New Talent (ANT) Festival. For the entire month of June, we put up a new show every night, all created by emerging theater artists. The ideas, technology, and pieces are all new and exciting and it really does show that Ars Nova is somewhere that devotes its space to the artistic growth of a new generation of makers. My role during all of this was to assist the Associate Production Manager, Kris Opperman, with the festival. And from that, I learned everything that went into putting ANT Fest together from a production side. Each morning before that day’s artists arrived, it would be my job to bring up whatever stock furniture or audio equipment they needed and setup the audience seating area. The night before, Kris would send out a Production One Sheet that listed all of this information for me and the technicians working on the show so that everyone would be on the same page from the get-go. From this, I learned how to efficiently put information together in an easy-to-read format—which is a very important skill to have! And some nights we had two shows happening at the same time and I would have to sit in one show’s tech and be the Production Management presence. From that, I learned what to look out for and how to problem solve anything that came up to make sure that the artists’ tech went as smoothly as possible. During that month, we did 28 shows in total so I quickly acclimated to the way Ars Nova does theatre.
After that, we started doing pre-production for the fall show Rags Parkland Sings The Songs Of The Future, a sci-fi folk concert. I’ve never actually gone through a pre-production process so I was really looking forward to this when I got this internship. I sat in on the production meetings with the creative team of the show and saw how our Production Manager Jes Levine communicated with the designers. More importantly, I saw how she managed and problem-solved in order to move the creative process forward. I wrote up my own version of production meeting notes which Kris went over with me. In those sessions, I learned what information to include and what kind of tone to use and each time the feedback was supportive. I really felt that I developed my communication skills through this work. Additionaly, I did some important research for the scenic design of the show. In order to stay within our budget, I had to find affordable wallpaper and carpet options. I compiled this information into spreadsheets and shared them with the designer. That information was important in allowing Jes and Kris to have an informed conversation with the scenic designer in order to keep the process moving forward. In those projects, I honed my research skills, learned what information is necessary for the pre-production process, and got much more comfortable on the phone with vendors (a super important skill that I developed a lot this summer!)
The other aspect of my job was operations-based. Every day, I completed a building walkthrough where I went through every floor of the building and checked to see whether or not the areas were clean, well lit, and well stocked. After I completed my walkthrough, I sent those notes out to Kris and to the Facilities and Operations Associate, Bria Woodyard. I would then complete those notes and fix anything that I could fix by myself, like changing light bulbs and tidying things up. For anything I needed help with, I worked with Bria to problem solve the issue. One of my big projects this summer was tackling our shop. This area housed our lighting, scenic, props, audio, video, and wardrobe items. I essentially had to inventory and organize the shop. Through that process, I learned so much about the equipment that we use every day to put up our shows, from cabling and adapters to the units themselves. This was another area in which I learned how to efficiently present information for other people. These inventory lists will eventually be the lists that we send out to designers before they make their rental item requests so an up-to-date inventory is important—especially when we need to keep departments within their budgets!
Ars Nova also held seminars for the interns with people in the theater community. Our first seminars were with Ars Nova staff members; so not only did we get to know what everyone does, we learned how they came to Ars Nova. We heard from a casting director, a theater critic, entertainment lawyers, playwrights, directors, designers, and more. It was a wonderful way to learn about all the different parts that go into making theater, especially in the non-profit world in which Ars Nova operates. In tandem with this, my supervisors contacted people for me to meet! The first was with a production supervisor at the Brooklyn Academy of Music; she took me around the space and talked to me about working in such an expansive organization. They also put me in touch with someone who works with a Broadway production management firm and I shadowed him for a ‘load in and tech’ for Roundabout Theatre Company’s production of Bernhardt/Hamlet. From that, I got an idea of how different Broadway is from off-Broadway.
I can say so much more about what I learned from my colleagues at Ars Nova. I grew so much as a person and a production manager just by being in a place with people who passionately believed in what we were all creating. I’d like to thank the Class of 1964 and the Ober Family for giving me the opportunity to become a part of the Ars Nova family—it really was a life changing summer.