by Aerynne Aiudi

Created on: June 28, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

By far, my best internship experience was at NYU in the drama department where I served as stage manager, light technician, sound board technician and stand in actress for a production of Russian Constructivist theatre.

In 1984 I transferred to NYU Tisch School of the Arts from the University of CT. I was studying psychology and English at UCONN, but my heart had always been in the performing and dramatic Arts. During the Spring of 1985, I applied to several colleges with the dream of studying drama. NYU was the first to answer, the first to offer me an audition, and the first to respond with an acceptance letter! September 1985 I packed my bags, hopped aboard a Greyhound bus, and in 3 hours I was in the City that never sleeps!

After a semester of classes in theatre History, Cultural Arts and acting, I was approached by my theatre History professor and was asked if I'd like to participate in a project that his acting troupe was engaged in at the time. He and his mates were putting on a 3 month long festival featuring Russian Constructivist theatre pieces. Well you could have knocked me over with a pin cushion! I dove into the work of cleaning, heating, lighting and setting up the theater space. I was responsible for tracking down the building manager on a Sunday morning in order to get the theater door keys. I mopped the floors, set up the heaters in order to heat the auditorium, manned the light and sound boards, and just had a randy dandy apple candy good time! We didn't get very good reviews. As a matter of fact, at one point someone overloaded the electrical circuitry and the lights blew out. I immediately brought up the house lights and the show went on. The producer, director and the cast thanked me for my quick thinking in saving the show, but one of the NY Times critics said that the lights going out were the best part of an otherwise dismal and grating production.

To conclude, because I did so well as the stage manager, I was invited to not only act in the next productions, but was asked to be the stage manager on the road for one of the actor's projects which required me to travel to Florida. My time in the theatre was brief, I am in my 40s now, a mother, and on my second marriage. I can't remember when the last time I was onstage doing anything other than karaoke! But my time at NYU will always mean so much to me. It was when I came alive in every sense of the word!

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