The GoodheART Report – A Different Kind of Travel

Nina Goodheart, A.R.T. intern and unstoppable blogger, takes a quick reflection on her whirlwind year so far.

In just over a month, I’ll wake up on the Upper West Side. I’ll make myself a cup of coffee, take a stroll down Broadway, and show up bright and early to the first day of rehearsals for Crossing: A New American Opera directed by Diane Paulus.

It’s been six months since I officially started as a gap year intern at the A.R.T., and I still can’t believe my luck. While many other teenagers who take gap years spend their time traveling the world, I hoped my new job would send me roving around the second floor of the Loeb Drama Center, making stops in different departments and taking quick vacations in the audience of the theater. I wasn’t disappointed—but I soon found myself wandering farther: to our treasure trove of a prop shop hidden deep within the catacombs of the building, to the bustling hallways of an Equity Principal Audition, to the subterranean stacks of Harvard’s Widener Library, to the A.R.T.’s star-studded gala in downtown Boston, to a stage draped with strings of recycled (or should I say “rescued”?) water bottles.

And soon, I’ll be going to New York City. Like your average Broadway-obsessed teenager, I take every chance I can go to go there. I’ve even taken the train down for some A.R.T. events (and I barely know how to express my gratitude to the many people who helped make that possible). But nothing really compares to the idea of living and working for three whole weeks in what a young, RENT-obsessed Nina (and probably an older, RENT-obsessed Nina, too) would call the “center of the universe.” It probably (definitely) won’t be as serene as I made it sound at the beginning of this blog post, but it’s definitely going to be a literal dream come true.

One more month. Stay tuned for blog posts about Crossing – and wish me luck!

Nina Goodheart is a full-time artistic intern, production assistant, blogger, and soon-to-be assistant to the director for Crossing at the American Repertory Theater. She can also recite the complete American musical theatre canon on command.