Before the curtain rises on a play at Philadelphia's Pig Iron Theater Company a lot of work goes into promoting the show and making sure all of the logistics are in place. This summer, Tom Sternberg '17 is learning exactly what that entails while interning at Pig Iron with funding from the John B. Hurford '60 Center for the Arts and Humanities. His duties include researching the artistic contexts of plays, writing blog posts, and supporting the day-to-day operations of the theater by calculating ticket sales and digitizing archives.

Pig Iron, originally founded in 1995 by a group of Swarthmore alums, is a small theater "dedicated to the creation of new and exuberant performance works that defy easy categorization." The company has performed shows at international festivals throughout Europe and have received two Off-Broadway Theater Awards for Hell Meets Henry Halfway and Chekhov Lizardbrain.

Sternberg has been acting since second grade and saw working at Pig Iron as an excellent way to continue his passion for drama. "Writing about theater, having the opportunity to explain why theater is meaningful to a wider audience, these seemed like worthy goals," he says. "I figured an internship with a well-respected Philadelphia company was a good place to start."

Sternberg, an English major, is very concerned with the subtleties of communicating effectively, especially in the theatrical format. While he might not be writing original plays for Pig Iron, he is relishing learning from the experts. "My coworkers have grants, advertisements, programs, and plans to construct all the time," says Sternberg. "Observing them with a background in writing [from Haverford], I feel better equipped to understand the nuances."

—Jack Hasler '15

"Summer Centered" is a series exploring our students' Center-funded summer work.