What is an internship?

Rather than offering scholarships to majors and minors in the Theatre Department, McMurry University offers internships, which function more like a college work-study position.  The amount of your internship is based on the number of hours you are willing and capable of committing each week to theatre activities and is added to whatever grants or scholarships you may otherwise qualify for.  Students are paid for performance and for all aspects of production work (set or costume construction, props, box office, publicity, etc.)  Whether or not an internship will be awarded and the amount of the internship is determined primarily through an audition/interview process. 

What is required for an audition or interview?

For the audition, there are several options.  If you are a performer, we would like to see two monologues, each roughly a minute and a half in length, demonstrating your range as an actor.  They can be either, one contemporary and one classical piece, one comic and one serious, two different aged characters, etc.  Or, if you are a singer, you can perform one monologue and one song.  (We can provide a CD/tape player for accompaniment, or you may provide an accompanist.) 

If you are a designer/theatre technician, we would like to see some kind of portfolio illustrating your work in the past and, perhaps for additional support, a letter or two of reference from persons you have worked with on productions.  The portfolio might be made up of renderings, floorplans, lighting plots, photographs of scenery, costumes, or props, or some combination.  In both cases, performer and technician, there will also be a brief, informal interview with the theatre faculty.  Please contact us if you would like to schedule an audition date and time.  We are generally flexible and are willing to meet prospective students on the weekends, if necessary.

What do current students have to say about having an internship?

"Our classes give us the knowledge, but our internship gives us the experience to apply what we've learned in class."  -Kathryn Ballinger

"You get paid to work in the theatre, doing what you love. You don't get that opportunity that often."  -Holly Van Eynde

Will I get leadership opportunities through this internship program?

Of course! We have many student leadership positions, such as:

Shop Foreman: Keeps our scene shop clean, delagates set work to students, is the right hand of the Technical Director.

Assistant Shop Foreman: Assistant to the Shop Foreman.

Costume Shop Foreman: Runs and keeps the Costume Shop clean, delegates work and makes sure costumes are being assmbled at a steady pace.

Head of Box Office/Publicity: In charge of patron mailouts and publicity, assembles and trains box office crew, keeps track of money totals, ticket sales, deposits money, and organizes dinner theatre.

If you have any more questions, please contact Dr. Philip Craik by email here.