Week Cinque: Intern Abroad, Novafeltria, Italy- Autumn Galka

My time in Italy has come to an end. With travelling to and from shows and cleaning up the costume shop, the last two weeks in Italy went by in a whirlwind. Despite only being with the program for five weeks saying goodbye to new friends is always hard. I made some worthwhile connections as well as wonderful friends.  After finishing each Opera, in the costume shop we had to restock each of the garments back into costume storage.

I have asked permission from my supervisor to post photos from our production.  The following photos are from the Voci Nel Montefeltro Facebook.

Madama Butterfly, Cast B

Madama Butterfly, Cast A

l’Italiana in Algeri

L’Italiana in Algeri

Gianni Schicchi

Gianni Schicchi

Friday evening the local Teatro Café held a special Rock N’ Roll America concert as a special send off for their many American patrons leaving. It was the perfect send off and goodbye to the sweet little town of Novafeltria. There are many cities that hold a special place in my heart and Novafeltria is now among them.

Coliseum

Saturday morning at 8 am we made the long, winding journey from Novafeltria to Rome; our time with La Musica Lirica was officially over. I spent two days in Rome cherishing the time I had left with my new friends. The traffic in Rome was ridiculous due to the number of Vespa drivers on the road. In Rome, we made sure to see the average tourist sites, such as the Coliseum and Trevi Fountain.

The Trevi Fountain, one of the only sites I wanted to see, was sadly under construction. I found Rome rather difficult to navigate, but eventually got to each destination. Monday Morning I made my way to Leonardo Da Vinci Airport for my final flight home. I thought I would never find a more confusing airport than Charles DeGaulle in Paris but I was terribly wrong. Despite much confusion, Monday afternoon I made it to Philadelphia Airport. I’m happy to be home but also going to miss Italy terribly.

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Khadijah Dixon Internship at Philadelphia Juvenile Probation

Random workplace picture.

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel”.  A quote by Maya Angelou explains my experience thus far. Although working in this environment is stressful at times and we all had moments were we forgot what someone said, but from what I saw we all had good feelings toward each other. Having been at my internship now for over a month, I have truly learned a great deal. Some of the things I learned thus far how important it is to look over names carefully because it makes a big difference when you are looking it up especially when you are sharing with others. Also I learned how to effective multitask. At times I have struggled with it, but since doing my internship I have seen that sometimes multitasking on certain things helps make the task going faster. An example would be while I’m doing the referrals, I will write an email about the education records while looking for the information that belongs on the cover page.

Also I have learned how important it is to be patient because sometimes people may not be at their desk so they may not be able to give you what you need. But usually I would work on another task. I would say that interning in the Training and Evaluations unit has exceeded my expectations because we do a lot more than training and evaluations. We make sure the appropriate paper work goes to the right facilities and departments along with other things. I would say the most surprising thing that has occurred at my internship was being at the sheriff’s station for about an hour. That was surprising because of all my task I had never imagined that helping at the sheriffs desk to be one of them. While at the desk I had to call the parole officers and inform them that the juvenile was there. Also I had to make sure that the juveniles signed in. Overall being a sheriff for an hour was not bad at all.

Week Quattro: Intern Abroad, Novafeltria, Italy- Autumn Galka

It has been a very long two weeks. We were touring the three operas across the Italian countryside.

Age Make-up on Actress Playing Bonzo in Gianni Schicchi.

It’s truly amazing to have the opportunity to see all of the different towns we would not otherwise have the opportunity to see. All of the venues we performed in have been so different. For our Madame Butterfly performances, we had the pleasure of traveling to Santarcangelo, Legnago and Alfonsine. For L’Italiana in Algeri, we traveled to Santarcangelo and San Marino. We traveled to Talamello and Sant’agata for Gianni Schicchi. Each Opera was also performed at least once in Novafeltria to a packed audience. Our job for running shows was similar to tech-ing a show, helping with make-up and wigs essentially. We had to put age make-up on many of the singers, particularly for Gianni Schicchi. 

It was incredible to see how ornate some of the theatres were.

Beautiful Ornate Theatre in Talamello.

It was particularly hard to travel to Legnago, a 3-½ hour bus trip from Novafeltria. We went to Legnago on a Sunday, and everything is shut down on Sunday in Italy, so after travelling for hours, hunger had set in and it was nearly impossible to find sustenance until much later in the evening. San Marino was absolutely stunning, and I’m so happy we had a show there. My self and fellow Costume Intern, Lauren went to some odd museums, including Museo Delle Torture (Museum of Torture) and Museo Delle Curiosita (Museum of Curosity). Both were very intriguing and informative. Touring was both exhilarating and exhausting.

View From San Marino

This afternoon we had the pleasure of being treated to lunch by one of the heads of the company, Brygida Bziukiewicz Kulig . We were taken to Della Nonna, which essentially means Grandma’s in Italian. You don’t actually order any of the food, Nonna (the chef, whom is the sweetest, little, old lady you’d ever dream of meeting) makes various dishes and simply serves them to you. It was phenomenal. The greatest Italian dishes you could think of graced our plates. My personal favorite was the cannelloni. My time here in Novafeltria is drawing to a close, our closing ceremony is tomorrow and I’m both saddened to be leaving this beautiful, petite Italian town but happy to have the opportunity to explore Rome and finally go home!

Technical Staff Dinner at Della Nonna

Week Tre: Intern Abroad, Novafeltria, Italy- Autumn Galka

Week Three:

Felice Quarto di Luglio! (Happy Fourth of July!) Here in Italy, we (the technical staff and myself) are going to celebrate the Fourth of July the only way we know how, with a cook out!

For two of our productions, Madama Butterfly and L’Italiana In Algeri, we are currently in Tech. We open Madama Butterfly tomorrow evening. In the costume shop, we have been very busy completing costume notes (anything that needs to be edited before opening night.) Through our tech run-throughs, we have been practicing quick changes and demonstrating how each actor will do their make-up, hair and tie their obi.

Set for L’Italiania in Algeri

This past Sunday, we had the pleasure to take a day trip to Florence. Florence is a truly beautiful city. My fellow interns and I roamed the streets searching for leather shops to purchase souvenirs for relatives.

We browsed through the Palazzo Pitti for a while. The Palazzo Pitti, or the Pitti Palace, has many exhibits and galleries. We travelled through Boboli Gardens there and explored the Costume Gallery (something I was very excited about.) The extreme detail put into the garments was intense. 

The Museo degli Argenti, or Medici Treasury, was a must-see. The treasures of yesteryear were incredibly detailed and magnificent, in particular they had Ivory Carvings from the 1700s so delicate that it is sincerely incredible they have lasted centuries. Florence was much easier to manage on the little Italian I have picked up. We decided not to go see the statue of David because our colleagues, in the past, had waited at least two hours to see it. Not that it is not an incredible piece of art, we just would rather explore and see more than wait in line. I do wish I had the opportunity to see The Birth of Venus, but yet again lines.

Back in Novafeltria, life has grown fairly normal here. One fact, I have not grown accustomed to, be that they do not have dryers here. With the exception of Laundromats, dryers are in limited supply and we have to hang our personal laundry on a line and also the show laundry. It’s weird to say I miss dryers but I only have two more weeks here in Novafeltria.