This past summer, I had a dramaturgy internship at Hedgerow Theater, a 100-year-old small regional theater two train stops away from Swarthmore in Rose Valley. My job for the summer was going through the theater’s archives and developing a history of the theater, as well as helping out with their summer production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I decided since most of my work was either at the theater or at the archive center at the University of Pennsylvania, it made sense to live at Swarthmore for the summer. The internship was unpaid, so I applied and received summer academic division funding through the theater department, which covered my housing and living costs for the summer. I was placed in NPPR in an apartment like suite, with 6 single rooms, a bathroom, kitchen, and living area. I loved my single – I had a huge window with a view of the ville and campus up to Parrish Hall. Some of my friends were also on campus, and we would make picnic dinners to bring out to the NPPR terrace, the Rose Garden, or Crum Woods.
Over the summer, most of the students on Swarthmore’s campus are doing research with a professor or another Swarthmore connected role. Many students work in labs in everything from psychology to biochemistry, and I had friends doing history research, working with the Chester Community Chorus, and working with music professors. Most people’s work kept them relatively close to campus. My internship, on the other hand, kept me constantly on the move.
Every day, I took the train either to the archives at the University of Pennsylvania or to Hedgerow theater. I loved working at UPenn. I worked at the Kislak Center reading room in the Van Pelt Library, looking through papers, taking notes, and working on my historical framework. I found some incredible things in the archive—a letter from Sean O’Casey, a famous Irish playwright, to the theater’s founder, Jasper Deeter, praising Hedgerow for its commitment to theater during World War II. I found documentation about a fire the theater went through in the 1980s that people still working at the theater today remembered. Some of my favorite things I found, though, were the beautiful illustrations of Hedgerow, from its earliest days to the present. I loved getting a sense of how people saw Hedgerow over the years and how much it meant to them.
When the Kislak center closed at four, I headed back to the train station (sometimes stopping for boba on the way) and took the express train back to Swat. On the train, I planned my grocery list. Then, I picked up my groceries at the Co-op and made dinner with friends. After dinner, I wrote some emails to my supervisor, called my parents, and organized my work to prep for the next day. I also tried to take a walk in the Crum Woods once it cooled down a little!
On the days when I went to Hedgerow, I took the train in the morning and got picked up at the train station by a coworker. The summer was super hot, so I was very happy that the theater was air conditioned! The grid (the area above the stage where you hang lights and other rigging for a show), however, was not air conditioned, and it got incredibly hot up there when I helped the technical director with rigging! I spent a lot of time with the other interns working on a flower drop for the show. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is largely set in a magical forest, and the set designer had ambitious dreams of sheets of netting, covered in fake flowers, that would float across the stage. It was quite the challenge to actually make happen, and we spent many late nights agonizing over the rigging and construction of the drops, but we finally made it work! Working at Hedgerow taught me so much about the work that it takes to turn creative vision into a reality, onstage and off. I worked the box office and parking, helped develop the lobby display for Midsummer, helped out with campers a few times, and even helped paint new seat numbers in the theater. It takes so much to make theater happen, but it forms bonds like nothing else. I love having a theater community right down the road—I’ve gone back to Hedgerow for shows during the semester and it’s so wonderful to see everyone again and step back into the incredible history I helped uncover. I really enjoyed my summer working at Hedgerow and the UPenn archives. The experience taught me so much, not only about archival research and how a professional theater works, but life skills—cooking and living on my own was totally new to me, and I’m really glad I got the chance to explore a more independent lifestyle at Swat with my friends.