WHAT A WEEKEND!
A couple weekends ago, the 2016-2017 board of ITO made the trek from states all over the country to New York City!
My journey started early on a Friday morning at Union Station in DC, embarking the four hour train ride to Penn Station! Upon arrival, the ITO Chair, Grace and I were able to have one of those cliché movie reunions in a train station with a slow motion hug and all (can you blame us?? We are theatre kids and hadn't seen each other in months!) From there Grace and I hailed a taxi and headed over to meet all the other ITO along with the wonderful Scott Wilson and Diane Carr (surprise, surprise, cue another wonderful reunion!) After a cheesy family reunion moment, we starting heading over to the offices of the wonderful American Theatre Wing, hardly being able to contain our excitement! Not only because of our upcoming meeting, but also because even though half of our board (Grace, MacKenzie, and myself) were seasoned New York tourists, for Ryan, Brittany, and Austin, IT WAS THERE FIRST TIME IN NEW YORK CITY! We strolled through the streets of Times Square completely in awe of the city around us, but there was no way we could prepare ourselves for what was about to come. We arrive at the American Theatre Wing and meet with the wonderful Joanna Sheehan Bell and Megan Kolb where we had the spectacular opportunity of hearing about ATW's video series initiative (its incredible, check them out at americantheatrewing.org !)
BUT THEN, the wonderful Joanna and Megan pull out A REAL TONY AWARD and were kind enough to let us ITO hold the award! I know that I speak for all 6 of us ITO when I say that we were in complete awe and disbelief of the fact that we were given the opportunity to HOLD A TONY!! (Thank you again American Theatre Wing!)
Friday ended with a Broadway show (Waitress), eating cheesecake, and an equally sweet (and adorably cliché) reunion with the incredible Kimberly Staples!
Saturday morning started with a meeting at Theatrical Rights Worldwide, where we were lucky enough to meet up with spectacular Jim Hoare who gave up his Saturday to meet with us and allow us to use their wonderful office space as a meeting room (thanks again Jim and TRW!) In the TRW conference room we began planning our travel for the year and which conferences we would each go to. Believe me when I say that this was not easy, we all wanted to go everywhere! I know that if all six of us could go to every state, we would!! Saturday came to a close with us watching The Color Purple (WHICH WAS AMAZING) and eating more cheesecake (if you can't tell, we are huge cheesecake fans!)
Sunday morning was the much anticipated Broadway Flea Market! We had an amazing time working with Broadway Cares, Mark Drum, and the New York and New Jersey STO! It was an incredible day of hard work, in the end EdTA's table raised almost $3000!
But as we know, all good things must come to a close. Monday rolled around and after breakfast we headed over to Tams-Witamark and had the wonderful honor of meeting with them and thank them for their support and sponsorship of the ITO! We went out with a bang finishing our trip by attending the Broadway Back-To-School concert at 54 Below hosted by the amazing Hunter Bell and Susan Blackwell!
Tuesday morning and our dreaded departure came faster than anyone oneof us hoped. We had an early start and all arrived home safely so incredibly thankful for the experiences we had as well as excited for the upcoming year!
Feel free to reach out to your ITO and contact us on @internationalthespianofficers for Instagram, @ITOOfficial on Snapchat, The International Thespian Officers on Facebook, @ITOViceChair on Twitter, and feel free to contact me at sseth@schooltheatre.org at any time.
We are so excited to serve you.
