Internship Begins

My first day at Henry Street was yesterday. Although my commute is annoyingly long, the day was invigorating and exciting and everything that I had hoped it would be. After getting slightly lost in Chinatown, I finally found the Abrons Art Center at around ten after 11 AM. It's a big building in the most interesting location. A few blocks from the Delancey subway stop on the Lower East Side, the Henry Street Settlement has offered its wide range of programs in everything from health services to employment to arts programming since the 1890s. As a leader in the field of community organizing, Henry Street has helped to improve the lives of countless people by giving them the tools to enhance their quality of life.

I've never spent much time on the LES. Growing up, I may have visited a few times, but I don't really remember. As I got older, I spent most of my trips to New York in and around Times Square, staying in YMCAs with my Grandma Rita and seeing two, maybe three Broadway shows in a single weekend or in Bayside, Queens, where my Grandma lived when I was young. And when I passed into teenagehood, a trip to New York became more about seeing friends than sightseeing or history lessons. I would stay with my best friend in Park Slope, visit with friends on the Upper West Side, rough it in Bushwick. The Lower East Side is one of those places that existed to me only through school history lessons, books that I read about female, Jewish immigrants, and stories from my family. Even the very second that I set foot in the area yesterday, at 11 AM, I felt that I was about to embark on a crazy adventure and that I had no idea what was in store for me.

Like I said, I got lost in a particularly shady section of Chinatown, and eventually wandered my way through dirty streets with street vendors selling equally dirty apples and oranges and arrived at the main settlement house, where I was directed to Abrons. Upon arrival, I greeted my new "boss", a woman named Nellie, who took me on a tour of the people that I should know in the department, introducing me to the people in charge of marketing, technical theatre, dance, drama, and of course, arts-in-ed. She informed me that Abrons' own youth theatre company is putting up a production of Metamorphoses later in the spring and that the staff was already well-aware of my proficiencies in all of the various performing arts areas, and that they would probably ask me to help out. After the meet-'n-greet, she armed me with an introductory packet filled with a list of nosheries in the area and sent me out into the (bright!) sunshine for lunch. I ate at a cute sandwich/soup/Mexican/trendy/coffee/pastry place a few blocks down. When I returned, I worked on cutting out ads for various Abrons events from mags like Time Out NY and regluing them in artsy layouts on sheets of white printer paper. At around 2:30, Nellie and I headed over to LoMA (Lower Manhattan Arts Academy) where I will be doing the brunt of my internship. I'm going to be Assistant Directing and just being a general helper with their production of....A Chorus Line! (Which was so so so exciting for me to find out, musical theatre dork that I am.) Yesterday was their first day of auditions, and I felt really lucky to be there.

The school is only four or five years old, and exists in a building with a few other sort of "themed" schools. In terms of the racial population, the kids are mostly African American, Latino and Asian American. They come from all sorts of varying backgrounds, from two parent, steady income, middle class homes to the multitude of impoverished and broken homes. 54 kids showed up the audition, which took place in a small dance studio. They were taught the famous audition sequence dance from A Chorus Line, and I alternated between watching the choreographer teach the kids and going out into the hallway to help the groups that weren't being worked with figure out the intricacies of a pretty difficult and very fast paced choreo sequence. Although I was nervous and somewhat shy (not to mention completely exhausted from a crazy first day), I do feel that I started to make some good connections with the kids. Auditions will continue tomororw with the formal dance, singing and acting auditions, which I'm very very excited for. I got the impression that LoMATE, as they call it (Lower Manhattan Arts Theatre Ensemble), has become an invaluable resource in the school. It keeps kids off the streets and gives them something productive to do with their time, something that they can be really proud of. Which, essentially, is what I think theatre SHOULD do. I'm excited to meet the kids who will make up the final cast and start building relationships with them, not to mention watching and assisting their relationships with each other to develop and grow throughout the rehearsal process, as I know they will. This is theatre in the making, and community building at its source.

I wrote earlier in this entry about the rich cultural history of the Lower East Side. I noticed some interesting things happening, even on my first day in the area. First of all, it's become an incredibly trendy and hip place to be, home to some of the city's best clubs, bars and restaurants. So I noticed a steady flow of twenty-something/early-30s hipsters and indie darlings, filtering in and out of a deep crowd of impoverished Asian people, elderly Jewish immigrants, and so on. It's such a diverse area, with all of the various cultural and ethnic groups trying to push their way around, in order to maintain even the slightest amount of elbow room, and more importantly, in order to not be pushed out. The area really puts meaning into the term "melting pot." I remember singing about the "Great American Melting Pot" when I was in Schoolhouse Rock Live! and knowing but not really UNDERSTANDING what we were singing about. Well, maybe I'll finally get to understand.

I can't help but feel that through the completely wild, roller coaster ride-type chain of events of the past few months, I've SOMEHOW ended up doing exactly the right thing at exactly the right time. I'm literally working The Job that I've been picturing myself having in the future. It's the ultimate stepping stone and I am so incredibly lucky to have landed here, even without fully knowing what I was getting myself into...or even knowing at all!

Now, I just have to try not to bite off more than I can chew and absorb every single detail of my experience, really live it, and try to make some sense of it all.

Phew, time for bed.
Step, kick, kick, leap, kick, touch...Again!

I'll have the combination running through my head for months.

-AL.PAL.