Intern Spotlight: Aly Trombitas

Here is our final intern spotlight!  Aly shares how BST aligns with her aspirations to make art and help people:

From when you can talk onward, there’s always that one question you’re consistently asked: What do you want to be when you grow up? As a highly optimistic college student with too many interests to count, I’ve always hesitated before responding to that question, because “Make art and help people” isn’t a satisfactory answer for most.

I discovered Bond Street Theatre’s website while doing research for a class, and am pretty sure I applied for an internship within the hour. Here was a group of trained physical theater artists who were using their craft not only to create compelling performance but also to promote human rights internationally—it sounded like a win/win situation to me!  I had been looking to spend my summer somewhere where I could get a sense of many aspects of a small theatre organization, instead of being guided into only one particular skill. Bond Street spends time with each intern to allow you to explore and grow, and that’s exactly what I needed. Not only is the office open and airy (and no shoes allowed—a valuable perk in my opinion) but it carries 37 years of not-for-profit arts and humanitarian knowledge. Even after 2 ½ months of taking everything in I am still in awe of the travels and impact that Bond Street has had in the world (75,000 refugees reached in Kosovo? Wow!)  

My summer at Bond Street has been incredibly fulfilling and inspiring. I’ve gotten to know an amusing company of theatre professionals who are so wonderful at looking beyond themselves to a broader world. I’ve become much more aware of myself as a part of that world—in one day I could be scouring news sites to provide updates and information to the Haiti team, researching grants for women’s public speaking programs in Afghanistan, talking with the Syrian-American Council about working with refugees, and editing the study guide for our new Young Audience Program. I’ve always been a team player, but I’ve never been a part of such a big team before! Many incredible people in many walks of life come together to make Bond Street’s vision a reality, and I’ve really been impressed at the interdisciplinary communication that makes programs as effective as they are.

Bond Street also values their interns as performers as well as administrators—I got to try my hand at solo and partner acrobatics and, of course, stilt walking. Stilts were certainly scary at first! But I was very proud of myself when I was able to let go of Katherine and Anna’s hands and walk around on my own. I can’t imagine how incredibly empowering that feeling must be to people around the world living in oppressive conditions, tall and strong and balanced on stilts—to me it epitomizes what Bond Street is trying to do.

This has been a wonderful place to spend my time. There’s been a lot of learning, big laughs, and some high quality iced coffee. Being here has further prompted my determination to make an impact in the world and I feel more confident than ever that “make art and help people” is a worthy pursuit. 

Intern Spotlight: Katherine Connolly

Back by popular demand! The 2013 Summer Intern Spotlight highlights the experiences of our three incredible summer interns. This week, recent graduate Katherine Connolly discusses her many passions and the value of being label-less.

I’m from Maryland, “The Old Line State.”  The Line is the one drawn in 1763 by Mr. Mason and Mr. Dixon,  which eventually became the division between free and slave states east of the Ohio River. And yet by the time the Civil War rolled around, Maryland was part of the Union (with some help from President Lincoln and Union forces). So much for drawing clear lines.

Over a century later,  the ambiguity remains. Maryland is too southern for the North and to northern for the South. The Tourism Bureau will tell you we’re “America in miniature,” with almost every kind of environment except a desert. Maryland is a blurred area, a melting pot of the melting pot.  The No Line State.

Why a Maryland history lesson in a post about the great work of Bond Street Theatre? Well, for those of you who know and love BST the connection shouldn’t be that hard to make. It made perfect sense to me the minute I stumbled across the BST website. Here is an organization that encompasses everything I am passionate about; a theatre that blurs lines and defies categorization. A perfect and exciting mix of traditional theatre, clowning, education, development, empowerment, healing, international collaboration, acrobatics etc. etc.

As a Maryland girl, I am comfortable with blurred lines. In June I graduated from the University of Virginia with a double major in global development studies and drama. To the theatre community I was a development person and to the GDS world I was a theatre person. Even my majors were a mix of disciplines; The drama major included technique and theory in all aspects of theatre, and GDS, an interdisciplinary program, included any class that could justifiably relate to the study of development. The highlight of my education was attempting to draw the lines between the two fields and finding ways to make those connections that BST has understood for decades.

Throughout my internship here at BST I’ve loved discovering all of the hats BST wears. My tasks as a summer intern have mirrored the diversity of BST’s work.  I’ve had the opportunity to build upon my background in political engagement in Afghanistan by providing research and programmatic support for the recent Educating the Electorate Project. I’ve contributed to the domestic focus by working with Heddy, Ilana, and Gretchen to develop marketing materials for the new YAP show, Amelia and Her Paper Tigers. Michael, Joanna, and Olivia have allowed and encouraged me to explore my interests in varied projects from assisting with grant-writing and editing, to researching potential projects in South Sudan and Arab Spring nations, to mapping out the structure of the UN. The more I work in different areas, the more I come to understand the importance of BST’s work.

So if you can’t quite figure out what category to put BST in, I would say you’ve discovered the true gem of BST’s work. This is a group of artists that redefines, bends, blurs, ignores, challenges, engages and defies lines. A no line state of cross-cultural artistic organization. BST thrives on collaboration and imagination. In a world of separation, of borders between us and them, what better approach than artistic collaboration? BST sees a future lying  in the grey areas, and this Maryland girl is honored to be a part of that work.

Katherine taught some of BST's acrobatics to her cousins during their beach vacation.

The YAP Rebooted!

Heddy Lahmann updates us all on the progress that she and Ilanna are making on the new Young Audience Program show, Amelia.

"The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers." – Amelia Earhart

When I jumped on board with Bond Street Theatre in February of this year, I was thrilled to get involved with the international social development work that the company is doing, and also expressed an interest in the local New York City outreach via the Young Audience Program. Joanna and Michael encouraged me to go for it and get the fires burning under the YAP again.

As of September, Ilanna Saltzman and I began collaboratively creating a new piece for the Young Audience Program to take to NYC public schools, museums and libraries. Our subject? None other than the fearless pioneering aviatrix, Amelia Earhart. We were inspired to tell the tale of her courage to dream and desire to stand up and go against the grain, at a time when women were only just getting the right to vote.

We’re weaving our story through the lens of two explorers on a quest to uncover the details of Amelia’s life’s story and ultimately the mystery of her disappearance. Dealing with the disappearance in the context of a show for children does have its challenges. We obviously want to keep the story playful and uplifting as well as educational and historically accurate. In an effort to achieve this, we’re putting the focus on Amelia’s determination and bravery and throwing in some stilting to manifest the thrill of flight. Amelia said, "Decide...whether or not the goal is worth the risks involved. If it is, stop worrying." Amelia's moxie is contagious, and we're excited to pass it on to the young people of NYC.