Intern Spotlight: Molly Stone

 Finding Community in Social Distance

From the beginning, Bond Street Theatre excited me with their commitment to using theatre as a tool for change. I learned of the organization through a passion for empathy, conflict resolution and the power of theatre. During my final year at Grinnell College, I conducted a research project with my advisor, Dr. John Garrison, about the power of performance as a tool for peace. While researching All My Sons, the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace and “Give Peace a Chance,” I delved into non-profit organizations that utilize performance to explore social justice themes. I discovered Bond Street Theatre and, as I learned more about their incredible work, I decided to reach out to get involved. I am very thankful that I did. 

Although I initially expected to be in New York City with the team, the pandemic shaped my experience into a virtual summer internship. This, however, did not take away from the incredible relationships and essential skills I developed over the course of three months. I stepped into a community that welcomed me and my ideas, encouraging me to learn and grow. I researched countries for grant proposals, developed a new Twitter strategy, and conducted grant research. My biggest project grew out of my desire to build connection and accountability despite physical distance. Bond Street has an incredible network of past interns who share strong beliefs in the power of theatre and its place in changing the world. I wanted to bring together the youth members on a monthly basis to discuss current social issues, brainstorm ideas, and explore ways that the organization’s work could evolve. Our first meeting took place at the end of July, when we all came together to share anti-racism resources and explore our role as individuals and members of Bond Street in the fight for racial justice.

 

My internship may have ended in August, but my involvement with Bond Street is far from over. The Youth Group continues to meet monthly as new interns lead discussions on issues close to their heart. The Bond Street community is not a stranger to distance and the conducting of important projects across borders, so this group easily maintains an honest and open space for Bond Street-related brainstorming, personal project development, and essential conversations with like-minded artists. Tim Steckler, a fellow Bond Street Youth member, came to the group with a desire to create a space where theatre can be used as a tool to explore anti-racist allyship. Now, Theatre for Anti-Racist Allyship (TARA) meets weekly where we discuss important texts, learn together about our roles in working towards a more compassionate, just world, and develop theatre techniques that can be used to explore anti-racist allyship. Personally, I hope for more domestic Bond Street programming in the future and I continue to develop ideas that may one day be implemented into a project stateside. I am beyond grateful for the community I found in Bond Street, the amazing friendships that have developed out of the Youth Group, and the commitment we all have to develop projects that combine performance and social change. I look forward to seeing how Bond Street Theatre and all those who support it will continue to create projects that prove performance is a strong, essential tool for the peace-making we all wish to see in the world. 

Intern Sportlight: Nina Rosstalnyj

This month Nina Rosstalnyj, our new intern from the Central European University and participant of Bard College's BGIA program, writes about her connection to theatre and what brought her to Bond Street Theatre.

All my life I wanted to become an actress – not like many teenage girls who dream about Hollywood and life as a movie star. Rather, I wished to be a true artist who devotes her body and soul to expressing feelings and words that are not her own. I wanted to relay a message to the audience and make them feel something they didn’t expect, make them speak about something they didn’t even think of before, and change people’s view on the world for a slight moment when they are in the theatre.

I was part of theatre groups in high school, had the chance to accompany my dad who is an actor, and even played small roles in two movies myself. Two short internships with movie productions and countless theatre visits supposedly "prepared me for my mission to get into an acting school". After high school I started with the hearings at national academies which took me to eleven different schools in eight different cities in Austria and Germany within four months. Looking back this was an exciting time because I traveled alone so much - I could explore new cities, meet interesting new people that shared a dream with me and I felt so grown up after managing the whole process on my own. Luckily, I had great support from my family, and working together on the monologues brought me closer to my dad.

On the other hand, the pressure was immense. You only have a few moments to convince the jury, and the performance has to be perfect no matter how exhausted you are from hours of waiting until your name is called, and no matter how nervous you are after spending half of the day with other nervous people. After the performance, sometimes you see the jury sometimes you don’t, sometimes you choose which role to start with, sometimes they do, and the waiting begins anew. And then you get a simple ‘no’ without any further feedback; is it a ‘MY GOSH NOOOOO!’ or more a ‘no, but maybe next year’?

After too many ungraspable ‘no's’ I was so frustrated that I decided to do something totally different in my life, and to never even think about theatre again. It took me three years of studying political science in a new city, one internship at the German embassy in Ukraine and five months student's exchange in Romania to overcome my anger and unwillingness towards performing theatre myself. In my last undergraduate year, I participated in the University's theatre group and learned to appreciate it as a hobby, without all the pressure I put on myself before and, in the meantime, political activism and the theory behind it had become my new passion.

When planning my future and applying for a graduate degree, I didn't think of the possibility of combining the two worlds of theatre and the political, my two passions. You already guessed it: this is where Bond Street Theatre is showing me the perfect alliance between the arts and peacebuilding, acting and healing. Now, the naïve dreams of 'younger me' and the present 'political me' have come together.

I hope to be a valuable member of Bond Street Theatre as a communications associate focusing on Ukraine in that I will develop my own project in the country that I call my second home. I grew up in Germany with all the privileges that go with it. But in 2014 when the conflict in Ukraine broke out, and in 2015 many people fled war and sought refuge in Europe, I understood that these privileges only exist for a tiny fraction of people. Hopefully, I will have the chance to form part of a project that changes the situation of some individuals for the better, even if it is only small moments of joy, or confidence-building. After all, this is a wish I always had.