The past couple weeks of my internship have been dedicated to social media and marketing, College Connection, accessibility, and alumni relations.
Starting with social media, social media has been a throughline and constant throughout my entire internship with Stagedoor Manor. Posting regularly on all the platforms has challenged me to stay creative and learn a lot about trends and the algorithm. Working with social media is a really important learning experience and tool for me to have because in the acting industry today, casting directors are more likely to hire those with a social media following. As someone who is looking to be an actor and earning a BFA in college, it is imperative for me to understand social media, marketing, and the algorithm because we are our own product that we are selling. With my work, the Stagedoor Manor TikTok account gets over 50 profile views a day, and this is separate from videos coming up on people’s ‘for you’ page. Profile views means that over 50 people a day are actively searching for the Stagedoor Manor account in their search bar and checking out our profile.
In a previous blog post, I talked about creating a separate platform for College Connection. I run this account entirely by myself and come up with posts regularly, using digital design and practicing collaboration by reaching out to Stagedoor campers who, like me, went through the college audition process. This account grows every day and College Connection is getting more recognition.
On the topic of accessibility, my internship advisor and I discussed the fact that Stagedoor has to recognize that not everyone has equity in the classroom, especially when it comes to the arts. Statistics show that regions with a wide percentage of people of color are way more underfunded than predominantly white regions and school districts. Often in these situations, the first programs to get budget cuts are the arts. Hayley and I brainstormed ways to give out scholarships for students of color to attend stagedoor for free to continue DEIA.
I am mainly responsible for our alumni relations. This includes reaching out to alumni, supporting their careers, advertising their accomplishments on our social media, and asking them to do Instagram takeovers. This is a good experience for me to have because collaboration in the arts industry and maintaining relationships and connections is highly important.
A challenge I am facing is trying to make time to work with the artistic directors to learn about how professional theater companies get rights, choose shows, and cast shows. What I have been doing has been keeping me incredibly busy, and I want to make sure I am able to touch base with the artistic area because I am interested in directing in college, and I want to learn about that process.
It’s bittersweet that I only have one blog post left with three weeks of the internship program remaining. I have really enjoyed this internship, but I am excited to go back to being a camper for my last summer.