Internships: Training Programs Work to Become More Equitable
Submitted by: Steven House
Author Stefanie Maiya Lehmann
"Internships, the base of many peoples shift from school to the professional world. In the best of all possible worlds this should be a wonderful and educational transition from academia to the student’s professional life. Ideally learning hands on knowledge about their chosen field in a 9-5 workday as opposed to school’s breakup of classes, breaks, and rehearsals. There have been waves of work adjusting internships from grunt work and coffee runs back to their original idealized roots. In this Winter’s edition of Southern Theatre it includes the article “Internships: Training Programs Work to Become More Equitable.”
From author Stefanie Maiya Lehmann “theatres have begun taking note of the inequality of asking interns to work for free or at a very low salaries and to endure “grunt work” rather than benefit from on-the-job learning about theatre. In the pages that follow, we share the thoughts of company representatives who participated in a Southern Theatre survey, as well as the perspectives of two past interns on their experiences and what needs to change.”
