Meet ICT’s New Summer Administrative Intern

June 12th, 2015

International City Theatre is excited to introduce Amy Patton, our Summer Administrative and Production Intern. She will be working with us this summer thru the Los Angeles County Arts Commission Internship program, and will be producing a Blog series entitled “Diary of a ICT Summer Intern.”

Greetings! This is Amy Patton, International City Theatre’s new summer intern, reporting for duty. The world is my oyster and I like idioms and hyperboles more than anyone in the entire world. Ever.

Nice to meet you.

I am a bright-eyed senior at California State University, Long Beach. I am a double major in journalism and English     creative writing. If I’m being honest, I picked English as a major for fun. Now some students go to local bars or pick up     hobbies like running and yoga to enjoy their free time. I, however, in my wasteland of a freshman schedule decided to     pick up a second major that was, essentially, polar opposite from my primary field of study.

I have nurtured my English major and cultivated it though. During my junior year of college, I was accepted into the literature program at Swansea University in Wales. That’s a nation in the United Kingdom for the geographically illiterate (I had to look where Swansea was when applying to the program).

“But Amy, why would you even go to a nation you know nothing about?” Well, inquisitive reader, I knew one quintessential fact: My hero, poet and writer Dylan Thomas, was a Swansea native. So in the name of Thomas, I spent a year travelling the UK, meeting kind people, silently mocking the Welsh accent and yes, reading.

Alas, the clock ran even as I tried to “rage against the dying of the light.” Sorry, Dylan. Now how do you top the excitement of a year abroad? It’s simple really – join the daily student newspaper. There will not be a single dull moment whether you like it or not.

In a short year, I quickly ran up the ranks from contributing writer to News Editor. I will return in the fall as the Print Managing Editor, the right-hand man for the Editor-in-Chief.

When I graduate from CSULB in December, I intend to work for a mid-size newspaper. I can’t quite decide if I prefer being an editor or reporter.  My position as an intern at ICT will be a crash course in Arts Administration so perhaps I am answering a new calling this summer.  While here, I hope to sharpen my business eye as I learn the ins and outs of what it takes to run such a successful, professional non-profit theatre. I swear they’re not forcing me to write that.

Only a mere two weeks into the internship and I can already see the commitment and passion that drives this lean work horse. It is that desire and love for the theatre that I most hope to learn this summer.

With that being said, stay tuned folks! I look forward to sharing my experiences and insights with you this summer.