Center Theatre Focus Group on interns

We'd love to get a graduate student(s) as an intern(s) at Theatre West. Preferably we'd like to pay them, but if we could only give them credit, so be it. They may feel they have a lot to learn but we feel we get at least as much from them, especially in areas like e-marketing.

I find mentoring grad students is a pleasure because they are so dedicated and hard working. They are also mature enough to treat as colleagues, and they bring a lot of best practices that small companies sometimes lack.

I find that administrative staff is way undervalued at small companies. Generally they are the last hired, because the company begins from an artistic director's p.o.v. and it is only after a few financial disasters that people decide that having someone who can add might be important. That attitude often continues to haunt administrators, who continue to be overburdened even as companies grow. Unpaid or part time staff is all most small companies can afford, so even having one extra person increases productivity enormously. Having someone who is on track for a professional degree in the field with real skills that many companies lack is a god-send.

As a side bar: Multi-tasking is overrated. Having time to focus, think and act on projects without interruption leads to deeper and better results. Although interns need mentoring, I find the amount of work they relieve me of is far greater than the number of hours I have to give them in attention, and can be instrumental in me finding that precious time needed for deep work. Also, they make great sound boards because they haven't heard all my bad jokes, and are willing to really listen with a fresh perspective to what I may be ruminating about.

Theatre West also can use artistic interns for lighting, set building, stage management and directing. But we really need those people during the school year and not during the summer months when so many internships seem to be available.

Election hope?

Will we continue to be a country of laws or take the road of authority? My hope for the new Congress is to restore the Constitution as the guiding force in the affairs of the United States rather than the personal will of the President.

Our country was founded on reason. The founding fathers rejected the divine right of kings in favor of a clearly articulated republic with balanced powers, split among three equal branches of government. They believed this would prevent the overreaching power of government from afflicting the people.

The clearest and most present danger we face as a nation is not terror. It is those who would use fear to elevate order over justice by replacing the will of the people with their own judgement arrived at in secret.

The Congress must open the barred doors of government to let the people reenter the halls they own, and see what is being fashioned there in their name, with their treasure and without their permission.

Inevitably, hearings into false intelligence, domestic spying, secret prisons, torture, and kidnapping will be resisted by those who claim to air such things in the public arena is to weaken the United States. Our country, like any structure, is only as strong as its foundation. The Constitution -- its protections and prohibitions -- is the bedrock upon which it stands. Allowing these abuses to stand uncorrected, even unreported, will render it sand, easily washed away by the next storm tide of crisis.

"They'll have me whipp'd for speaking true, thou'lt have me whipp'd for lying; and somtimes I am whpp'd for holding my peace. I had rather be any kind of thing than a fool; and yet I would not be thee, nuncle; thou hast pared thy wit o' both sides and left nothing in the middle" -- King Lear, Act I, sc iv

Exposing our faults may whip our pride. But the salve of truth will heal us. Our Constitution won't survive the infection that ignoring them will cause.