By Anthony Bromberg
Daily Bruin Contributor
For many people in Los Angeles who aspire to act, figuring out
where to start and how to break into the profession often proves to
be the most difficult thing.
Thankfully, there are experienced people out there who have
thought of providing for this scenario. Over the past few years,
the theater company A Noise Within has conducted an internship
program with this in mind. The program immerses aspiring actors, as
well as those interested in production, in the world of
theater.
“It’s real life work experience, except you
don’t get paid,” Steve Kim, a current intern at A Noise
Within and ’95 UCLA grad in marine biology, said in a phone
interview.
Kim, along with 11 other acting interns and one directing
intern, are now getting the chance to take part in one of three
plays that A Noise Within is running in its current season, each of
which plays in rotating successive weekends.
The interns, upon being assigned to one of the plays, get to
work on many of the different aspects of the production. They are
involved with everything from props to helping to arrange the set
during the performances. They are also guaranteed an understudy
role, and many have small speaking parts in the plays.
In addition to the hands-on professional experience, interns at
A Noise Within also take classes that run the spectrum of necessary
theater skills ““ from text analysis, to speech, to
scene-work. These classes are taught by professionals from within A
Noise Within’s company.
“The actors try to serve as mentors for our
interns,” Geoff Elliott, an art director and one of the
co-founders of A Noise Within, said in a phone interview.
Working with actors who love and are serious about theater sets
this program apart and makes it such a valuable experience,
according to Hisa Takakuwa, the head of the intern program as well
as an actor with the company. The fact that it specializes in
classical theater as well provides an especially challenging, but
time-proven, backdrop for a format.
With these advantages come necessary sacrifices. According to
Steve Kim, there is always plenty do. The week in which
“Pericles,” the play he interns for, is performed, his
days are consistently as long as 11 in the morning to 11 at night,
after all of the hours for classes and preparation have been logged
in.
“We really try to frankly scare them,” Elliott said.
He added that to truly invest oneself in classical theater it takes
a great spiritual and mental commitment. The interns experience
this first-hand, which raises the question that since it is such a
time-consuming undertaking, of who this internship is intended
for.
For theater students at a university like UCLA, this type of
internship might be somewhat repetitive according to Gary Gardner,
a playwriting professor and active member of the local theater
community, in a phone interview. Students here are already given
the opportunity to act in many classic as well as original plays,
and they also take classes that familiarize them with the type of
scene-work and construction that would be going on at a company
like A Noise Within.
Many experienced theater students might see an internship like
this and find it to be slightly regressive, and wonder where the
bigger parts are. This is why, Gardner said, many students he knows
opt to intern in the areas of television or film, or sometimes even
at agencies, in the interest of advancing their acting careers in
different directions.
Yet, Takakuwa, who has been with the company almost since its
inception, is quick to point out that A Noise Within is not a
showcase company whose aim is to provide the actors with a platform
to jump into other work off of.
“Our goal is to really create a professional theater
company in L.A.,” Takakuwa said. And it is this desire to
maintain their integrity and passion for what they do that makes A
Noise Within a respectable classical theater company that
consistently puts on good plays. This gives interns a chance to
realize the passion which exists in this community of people who
are serious about theater. Geoff Elliott refers to it as a
“small family” and believes that the exposure to this
group can show how at once good and challenging a life in the
theater can be.
Steve Kim is enjoying his time at A Noise Within and describes
the internship as a very good and realistic experience. He hopes to
utilize his experience and connections at A Noise Within to further
help him get into a graduate Masters of Fine Arts program in
theater and possibly theater work from there.
In this way A Noise Within’s program is most beneficial
for both people with less experience in theater as well as those
few who are called to the devotion of the tumultuous god of
theater.
To these ends Elliott expects that the internship will continue
to grow in scope. He hopes that it will one day be comparable to
the experience he had at the three-year program at the American
Conservatory of Theatre in San Francisco. Until then, it will
continue to be a valuable resource for those trying to get their
proverbial foot in the door.
“The by-product is getting to know professionals and
hopefully they’ll remember you in the future,” Kim
added.