Blog

Sydney Hill

Marketing Intern, August-December 2016

Cherry projects:  Marketing & Publicity Director for The Snow Queen, Box Office for Storm Country & The Snow Queen

School:  Ithaca College, Class of 2018, Theatre Arts Management (B.S.) & Integrated Marketing Communications (B.S.)

Hometown:  Athens, PA

Favorite aspect of theatre to work on:  My favorite aspect of theatre to work in is marketing. As a marketer, you get to see everyone’s immeasurable amounts of labor come forth toward one cause, and then bring the product of this to a mass group of people. It’s incredibly rewarding to watch an audience exit a theatre in awe, and know that you had a part in their decision to have this experience. You’re the initial voice of the show to the people, and the act of properly conveying someone else’s vision through marketing is a continually stimulating challenge. It’s really an art form within itself

Theatre artist inspiration:  Julianne Brienza, the CEO and founder of Capital Fringe in Washington, DC. The values of this specific festival are truly what I stand for as an artist, to keep theatre about the art and the artist, not about commercializing it or exploiting it. Not only has she created an event that breeds art under these auspices, she also is incredibly successful in her administrative endeavors leading the festival.

Project most proud of:  I produced a production of Philip Ridley’s Mercury Fur in the Spring of 2016. This is the project I am the most proud of because it was so unique, and so demanding. The show’s plot takes place in a run-down house, so we decided to perform the show in an actual house in Ithaca. It was very thematic and there were no boundaries in the space, everywhere was a performance spot. For example, when it was written in the script that a character was to storm up the stairs of the house, they actually did, leaving the audience sitting in an empty room, hearing nothing but pounding foot steps and screams above their heads. Since it was in a house the limitations of an established performance space were nullified. I got to run absolutely wild with the marketing and audience “experience”, and in order to deal with the low seating capacity of the house, it was made it into an exclusive, invite only “secret” event, which added an extra flair to the project. It was just different in every way than anything I’d ever done or was familiar with, and was more than worth the month of sleep I forewent.

Dream Job: CEO of a Fringe Festival