Updates on past interns

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As part of the current, on-going celebration of Meadow Brook Theatre's 50th season, there will be a sporadic series of posts here on our blog about theatre artists & administrators who received experience early on in their careers here at MBT.  For this first installment, we'll review those who started as an intern for a season & stayed or returned to now be a part of our permanent staff.

Sarah Lin Warren was a stage management intern in our 1998-99 season.  She stayed in the metro Detroit  and worked at other area theatres including stage managing shows at the Jewish Ensemble Theatre in West Bloomfield and for Second City at the City Theatre in Detroit.  She also worked for Cirque du Soleil during their engagement at the Palace in the year following her internship.  When a stage management position opened up here in the fall of 2000, Sarah came back to us for several seasons before leaving to work in New York City with a brief break to stage manage at Dallas Theatre Center.  But the pull of Meadow Brook was too strong and she returned to us again to serve as our production manager and to do double-duty as assistant stage when we have two shows in performance and in rehearsal simultaneously.

Travis W. Walter was an acting intern during our 2002-03 season understudying many roles, appearing in small roles onstage and pressed into service for technical & administrative support.  He stayed on the following season to assist Cheryl Marshall with group sales and various other projects including some more time performing onstage and also stage managing "Sisters of Swing" in spring '07.  He began directing with "Murder by Poe" in fall '08 and was named as our current artistic director starting with the 2010-11 season.

Casey Hibbert was part of our first full & now standard complement of 8 season interns in 2009-10 as the scene shop intern.  He stayed for a 2nd season internship the next year as the stage management intern.  Casey then joined our staff working in the box office and accepting other duties including maintaining our website.  When he first came here, he was moving to Michigan with his new bride LeeAnn Kostur who later on also joined our staff working in group sales and other administrative support.  When he gets hours away from MBT, Casey continues to act & direct at other area theatres and appears each summer at the Michigan Renaissance Festival.

Paige Biggs Vanzo was an administrative intern in our 20101-11 season and also has stayed on since providing administrative support and currently serves as primarily as marketing & communications coordinator.  She also continues to act & direct at other area theatres and appears each summer at the Michigan Renaissance Festival.

Daniel Morency was our stage management intern last season and appeared onstage in "A Christmas Carol".  This         year he became one of our newest full-time staff members working as Assistant Master Electrician.  In addition he works part-time assisting the Technical Director of Oakland University's Department of Music, Theatre and Dance.

Female Acting Intern Updates - more to come

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Meadow Brook interns each season now include both a male and a female acting intern who between them can understudy all the roles in the subscription offerings and sometimes get to play a role themselves in those shows or "A Christmas Carol".  In our early years we had no interns or no acting interns or only one.  The two acting interns these seasons when not in rehearsal or performance can usually be found assisting with administrative work but like all the interns are scheduled to work with the scene shop or lighting crews in the weeks between the closing of one show and the opening of the next.

One of our first interns was Sara Catheryn Wolf who since her internship here has continued to appear onstage here in several shows including 14 or the past 15 seasons of "A Christmas Carol."  She is also now the artistic director for Water Works Theatre in Royal Oak.  She has acted or directed shows there most every summer since their inception and continues to act or direct for other metro Detroit theatres.

Meredith Gifford, intern from the '11 - '12 season, stayed to work in area theatres for a year and then moved to Boston and received a Masters of Arts in Theatre Education.  She's returned to Michigan to be an adjunct professor of theatre at Rochester College and the K-12 Theatre program Director at Notre Dame Preparatory School in Pontiac.  At present she has little time to be onstage herself but look for her there in the future.

Renee Turner, since her '10 - '11 internship when she acted in four of our shows that season,  has concentrated on the singing aspect of her career working with "Rio and the Rockabilly Revival" which has won a Detroit Music Award and with "Nick Kuhl and The Gang", another popular local band.  She's also been doing a lot of backup vocals on recording sessions with different artists.  She'll also be performing backup for Mitch Albom at the Fox Theatre on November 8 for a charity book launch to benefit S.A.Y. Detroit featuring other Michigan artists.

Going back a  few more years to the  '08 - '09 season when we had fewer interns, Lauren Coleman was the acting intern.  She also returned to Michigan after some years away and teaches at L.A. Dance in Lake Orion and runs their musical theatre program.  In addition to teaching, she also works as a choreographer & director locally.