Beyond the Classroom: Performing Arts Internships

A theatre internship is a requirement for a BA degree in Theatre Arts.

Internships offer students opportunities for career path exploration within performing arts fields and industries. Students will experience and see what a post-graduation career in looks like and what can be expected on a daily basis. An advantage to internships is that they create potential for professional networking and references, which are at their most valuable when students begin applying and/or auditioning for jobs in this field during an exciting time when the Deaf performing arts movement has been gaining momentum nationwide.

For Theatre Arts majors, a professional internship—Field Experience (THE 320)—is required for graduation. It is highly recommended, but not required, for minors to seek out internships. Graduates find employment in a wide range of possibilities related to theatre. Though there are no guarantees, in professional theatre especially, graduates of Gallaudet’s Theatre and Dance program have appeared on stage, television, film, off-Broadway, and regional theatres across the nation.

We encourage our students to take on at least two internships, as we fully subscribe to, and support, the idea that experience is the best teacher.

In the past, our students have interned at:

DEAF

• National Theatre of the Deaf
• Deaf Austin Theatre
• Deaf Spotlight
• Deaf West
• New York Deaf Theatre

LOCAL (DC, Maryland, Virginia)

• Adventure Theatre Company
• Arena Stage
• dog & pony dc
• Faction of Fools
• Imagination Stage
• The Kennedy Center
• Mosaic Theatre Company
• Next Stop Theatre Company
• Olney Theatre Center
• Open Circle Theatre
• Smithsonian Museums
• Studio Theatre
• Synetic Theater
• Theatre Lab
• Warner Theatre

NATIONAL

• Berkeley Repertory Theatre
• Huntington Theatre Company
• Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma
• Oregon Shakespeare Festival
• Playwrights Horizons
• Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse
• Speakeasy Stage Company
• Sound Theatre Company
• Theater de la Jeune Lune
• Williamstown Theatre Festival

INTERNATIONAL

• Shakespeare’s Globe (London, UK)

Our internship requirement not only fits within the philosophical framework guiding the direction of our program, it also coincides with Gallaudet University’s focus on developing relationships beyond our campus, as a conscious effort to address historical professional networking difficulties facing d/Deaf people wanting to work in Theatre as well as in other disciplines.