For the first year ever, 17 Advanced Drama students are taking a class in which they work as drama interns.

According to senior drama intern and Advanced Drama student Paige Colvin, drama interns help make everything run smoothly for each show. In addition to acting in the performance, each intern has a specific job that allows them to contribute to each production.

“There are interns that deal with costumes for every show. There are interns that deal with props for every show. There are people who are the production manager who are producing every show,” said Colvin.

When a show is taking place, every student in the class is responsible for a different part of putting together a successful performance.

“Our drama program here really operates as a legitimate theater company,” Colvin said.

To take the class, students must be seniors enrolled in the Advanced Drama class with four years of drama experience.

“The cool thing about this year is that it’s an actual class. Before, it would just be five to ten seniors [as a TA] for [Erik Berkowitz], but this year it is an actual class,” said senior drama intern and Advanced Drama student Ann Caindec.

According to the drama interns, students enjoy this class because it allows them to experience working in a theater company and doing things other than just acting. Additionally, these students like to have more of their schedule made up of drama classes because this is the type of career many of them hope to pursue after high school or in college.

“[We] have a lot of time to work during fourth period, which is our intern period, but [we] still have a lot of work that [we] do outside of school. [We’re] after school all the time, [we’re] working with other people and [we] really learn a lot of collaborative skills,” said senior drama intern and Advanced Drama student Mia Glen-Schuster.

“Interning just allows us to be more involved and allows us to see how a theater company is run on some level,” Colvin said.