Technical Internship Training Program

Shaminda Amarakoon, Chair

Jennifer McClure, Associate Chair

Within the TD&P program, David Geffen School of Drama offers a one-year technical internship training certificate for those seeking to become professional costume technicians, production electricians, projection engineers, properties artisans, scenic artists, scenic carpenters, or sound engineers. This certificate combines six graduate-level courses with closely guided and monitored practical production work. Interns receive individual attention, training, and supervision from their program advisers and work side-by-side with the School’s and Yale Repertory Theatre’s professional staff.

Interns are required to successfully complete two terms of the practicum course in their chosen discipline. An assigned faculty or staff adviser guides each intern in selecting six additional courses throughout the year. Interns may also audit one additional course as well as participate in the TD&P Seminar, or another seminar course, in both terms. Most courses offered as part of the program’s three-year M.F.A./Certificate program of study are open to technical interns. The courses cover a wide range of topics, including: shop technology, electricity, drafting, properties construction, projection engineering, sound technology, scene painting, costume construction, patternmaking, rigging, and theater safety. Interns are encouraged to consider courses from the Design program as well. In addition to practicum and course work, interns may be assigned one or two professional work assignments (PWAs) in their area, giving them some technical design, production planning, and management experience.

Those who successfully complete the program of study receive a Technical Internship Certificate during the School’s May commencement ceremonies. Some interns decide to apply and then, if accepted, subsequently enroll in one of the three-year M.F.A./Certificate programs of study—typically Technical Design and Production or Design—sometimes receiving credit toward the degree for requirements already completed. Other interns choose to apply for a second one-year internship in the same or different discipline.

Plan of Study: Technical Internship

Required Sequence

Additional Requirements for the Degree

Anti-Racist Theater Practice Requirement

Technical Interns are invited, but not required, to enroll in DRAM 559b, Strategies for IDEAS in Production, in their first or second intern year. This course offers vital strategies for the lifelong development of individual and communal anti-racist practice. Those who eventually enroll in one of the M.F.A./Certificate programs following their internship will have to complete this or a similar course in order to fulfill the School’s anti-racist theater practice requirement for graduate students.

Elective Sequence

Electives are determined in consultation with a faculty adviser and allow each student reasonable flexibility in selecting courses in the student’s area of concentration.

Participation in Commencement

For technical interns to be eligible to participate in Commencement ceremonies at the end of their residency, all courses and professional work assignments (PWA) need to be satisfactorily completed as outlined above.

Yale Cabaret

Technical interns are encouraged to work in all capacities at the Yale Cabaret; however, this participation is understood to be in addition to and in no way a substitution for required program work. No intern with an Incomplete and no intern on academic warning may participate in the Yale Cabaret in any capacity.

Courses of Instruction

See course listings and descriptions under Technical Design and Production (M.F.A. and Certificate). Additional courses in the Design program are also available. Courses in other programs in the School, or in other departments and schools at the university, may be considered, subject to scheduling and adviser approval.

DRAM 2a, Everyday Justice: Anti-Racism as Daily Practice Led by faculty member Carmen Morgan and facilitators from artEquity, this course serves as an introduction to key frameworks and strategies for the development of an anti-racist practice. Aligning anti-racist values with one’s thoughts and actions can only occur with everyday practice. A cure for racism is doing the work of everyday justice. How might we engage in this work? This course provides frameworks and a baseline analysis for antiracism strategies and action. As a member of an ever-changing community, what is your role? What is your responsibility for social change? Where do you have agency?

DRAM 4b, Critical Response Process® Developing methods for giving and receiving feedback on works in progress is central to the curriculum of the School. Therefore, all first-year students and technical interns in their first year are enrolled in this course. Devised by choreographer Liz Lerman in 1990, the Critical Response Process® (CRP) is a structured process for getting feedback on works in progress as well as a source of tools for general communication and collaboration. Applicable for all art forms, CRP is in broad use throughout North America and Europe. In a course facilitated by faculty members Liz Lerman and Paloma McGregor that combines conversation, demonstration, and participation, students and technical interns reflect on their experiences as givers and receivers of feedback and consider the role of critique in various aspects of their work. The course provides an opportunity to practice CRP’s four steps and the ways it puts such values as meaning, agency, inquiry, and consent into action while also considering the implications of those values for our work on stage, in rehearsal halls, and in making for more just institutions. The course is scheduled by the School over two days at the beginning of the spring term.

DRAM 9a/b, TD&P Seminar See description under Technical Design and Production.

DRAM 99a/b, Internship Practicum This course provides practical work in the intern’s discipline, with experience in the different elements and phases of the theatrical production process. Interns train on tools, software, and processes as required for each production. Additional training beyond production work is determined after consulting with faculty or staff advisers. Open only to those in the Technical Internship Training Program. Shaminda Amarakoon and faculty

DRAM 559b, Strategies for IDEAS in Production See description under Technical Design and Production.