Summer Stock

[cbenvegn]

So it's that time of year...

I'm looking into Summer Stock for the first time and am wondering what people's recommendations are from prior experiences!
Im a first year grad student so location is not really an issue, I'll really go anywhere (international even!)

[Gina]

I've done summers at Central Piedmont Summer Theatre (Carlotte, NC), Maine State Music Theatre (Brunswick, ME),  Walnut Hill Summer Theatre (Natick, MA), Yale Institute of Music Theatre (New Haven, CT), and Second Stage Theatre (New York, NY). They were all very different jobs but I enjoyed them throughly. If you'd like specifics, feel free to pm me.

As a recent grad school graduate, I would say it probably would have been smarter to have spent my summers focusing on what I wanted to do after school. I have since moved to NYC and if I would have decided that sooner, it would have been smarter to concentrate my energies here, developing contacts and learning the area. My school did mostly classics and new work, so I would try to mix it up and work on some musicals in the summer. I did do a new musical worship that was fun and refreshing.  I don't really regret my choices. I developed some amazing collaborator relationships and the experiences really grew me.

Best of luck!

[Cedes]

Everything that Gina said.

For summer stocks, focus on what you can learn in a crazy environment. It's a lot of info and work thrown at you in a very short amount of time, and it really makes you use SM muscles you never realized you had. I found it was a great place for me to hone my SM skills as a multitasker and being able to work on things simultaneously (even now, that helped with me working in a repertory theatre).