What life is like as an Apprentice: Class of 2019-2020

Many of my friends and family ask about my apprenticeship here at OTC, specifically what living on campus is like. My answer is always the same: I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else for a year-long apprenticeship. You not only get to work under the supervision of many DC area professionals, but you also live with 15 other apprentices who are in the same boat as you. Whether our parents live 15 minutes or 15 hours away, we have formed a family here on campus.

For some of us, we have already made it halfway through our apprenticeship. Six months flies by incredibly fast. For others, there are still 9 months left to go of memories to make, bonds to form, and knowledge to obtain. Over these past six months, my apprentice class has done so much together, and I can’t wait to see what the start of the brand new decade holds in 2020. Here are some of the many things the 2019-20 apprentice class has done together.

Shows we have seen together:

• Miss You Like Hell - Baltimore Center Stage
• School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play - Round House Theatre
• The Tempest - Synetic Theater
• Radio Golf - Everyman Theatre
• Newsies - Arena Stage
• Men on Boats - Baltimore Center Stage
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Round House Theatre

We have also planned many holiday events together including:

• Pumpkin carving, which resulted in adorable jack-o-lanterns and Eleanor Hill’s delicious pumpkin seeds.
• A week long Halloween movie marathon which mainly consisted of the Halloweentown films.
• A bountiful Thanksgiving dinner at the Jones’ (Josiane Jones, Director of Production and Jason King Jones, Senior Associate Artistic Director) for those apprentices who couldn’t fly home for the weekend.
• Decorating the porch (our living room space) for Christmas. We set up our large Christmas tree, hung lights around the room, and made snowflakes to decorate the office for the holidays.
• A secret santa gift exchange. Eleanor, our company management apprentice, assigned each of us a secret santa and we opened our gifts around the Christmas tree.
• Christmas Eve and Christmas Day festivities for the apprentices and guest artists who are staying on campus. This will involve making a decorative charcuterie board, cooking a Christmas day feast, and popping an array of different popcorn flavors for watching the Harry Potter films.

Each week, you may find the apprentices participating in any of the following activities:

• Gathered around the long table in the porch engaged in a weekly Dungeons and Dragons campaign.
• Going to see a movie at a local theater. Some of the films we have seen in the past few months include: Knives Out, Jo Jo Rabbit, and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
• Driving to the nearest farmers market to buy some tasty local produce and baked goods.
• Curled up on the couch watching/binging a Netflix or Disney Plus show. I think many of us would recommend: The Haunting of Hill House, Encore, or The Mandalorian.

These are just some of the things we have done this year, and I hope to double this list over these next few months.