Marquette Students Gain Hands-On Arts Experience with Fox Theatre Internships

Within about 30 minutes of the start of her internship with the Fox Performing Arts Charitable Foundation (Fox PACF), Marquette High junior Angel DiSalvo was already logged into the organization’s social media accounts.

“I was like, ‘Oh my. This is a lot of trust you’re putting into me,’” she said, with a laugh.

This was the first time the Fox PACF had hosted an intern to help out with its annual Teen Talent Competition and, as such, DiSalvo was charting some entirely new territory during her 12 weeks on the job, from preliminary auditions Nov. 1 through the Jan. 23 stage show at the Fox Theatre.

Through it all, she gained valuable insight and hands-on professional experience in theater, publicity and filming and editing pieces, fields she hopes to pursue once she graduates Marquette and heads to college.

“I attended every rehearsal, every audition; I recorded just about everything,” she said. “By the time we got to the end of it, I had about 10 hours of footage. I got to be there for every step of the process. I got to be there for all of it.”

The Fox PACF Teen Talent Competition is an annual performing arts event open to all high school students in the St. Louis metropolitan area. Students audition in a category of their choice – such as dance, instrumentalist, vocalist or specialty act – and a select few are chosen to perform and compete for prizes at the stage show in January.

This year, drama teacher and Marquette Theatre Company (MTC) director Rebecca Young encouraged DiSalvo and fellow junior Patrick Hoffner – both MTC officers – to apply for Teen Talent Competition internships.

Both applied, and both were accepted. Hoffner was one of two stage manager interns for this year’s show.

“My responsibilities mostly included setting up the rehearsal space, signing in and out actors, ensuring all participants were in the right place at the right time and anything else the professional stage managers needed,” Hoffner said. “I'm hoping to do stage management as my future career, so this experience was an incredible way to see how stage management would work in a professional setting and to start to build connections in the theater community.”

DiSalvo’s main duties involved capturing footage to use to create trailers for this year’s show, as well as a preview reel to garner publicity for next year’s auditions.

Aside from acting in MTC productions, DiSalvo serves as publicity and house management for the troupe. She also films and edits video packages for the school's MHSNews student journalism outlet and hopes to study film in college.

The Fox internship gave her valuable experience with deepening her skills in non-journalistic video storytelling.

“Filming a performance is a whole different ballgame. I just want to have as many different videography skills I can get because more versatility is better in the long run,” she said. “I loved being a part of this great community. I met so many people. The Fox creative team has so many nice people that I got to know and work with. They’re really there for you and your growth. They told me about internships at other places and are willing to open doors for you that you probably couldn’t have opened by yourself. They’re willing to give you that extra nudge and give you those tools.”

Hoffner, too, hopes to use this experience to further his craft in stage management. He already has another internship lined up for this year’s Ken Page Awards for high school musical theater, which will be held at the Fox on May 28.

“My favorite part of the internship was the community I got to engage with," he said. "I became really close with the other two stage management interns and got to build relationships and connections with the professional stage management team as well as the rest of the Fox team.”

Outside of their MTC duties, DiSalvo and Hoffner will get to team up again as part of the Missouri Thespians’ All-State show, which will be performed in St. Louis in January.

Hoffner will be stage manager, and DiSalvo will handle publicity, digital scenery and front of house.

“We just happen to apply for all the same things, and then we keep getting in. We’ve kind of been like a dynamic duo,” DiSalvo said. “We just keep doing all these things together, and that’s been a lot of fun.”