Marlon Antigua, November 14

Marlon Antigua, High Five Tickets to the Arts: High Five Tickets is a small grass roots nonprofit dedicated to providing theater arts access and education for city youth. Their small yet elegant office is located at 53rd St and 5th Ave in Manhattan. According to Marlon's mentors Eric Ost and Laurel Anderson, and based on what I saw during my visit today, the office setting feels casual and community oriented yet focused and productive as any thriving NYC nonprofit. In general, this internship experience has been particularly beneficial for Marlon in pushing him to further develop his social skills and business understanding. Prior to this experience, Marlon had very little if any exposure to the world of theater arts and nonprofit educational organizations. One might say this experience is radically different from anything Marlon had done or even thought about before, and as a result there has been enormous growth. It turns out that Marlon's limited exposure and prior interest is an enormous asset for an organization that is charged with turning teenagers on to the world of theater, music, dance, and stage performance. Marlon is their target audience. With this idea in mind, Marlon's main independent project over the next several months will be take himself and one lucky friend (Genesis may have priority) to as many shows as he can get days off from his "real" job. Nothing is for nothing however. Marlon will be reviewing all performances and publsihing his written critiques on High Five's website or possibly on his own soon to be developed blog.

Aside from the grand scheme of things, Marlon plays a pivotal role in the daily workings of the education and development departments. This includes helping out the whole staff in ongoing projects, day to day clerical tasks, preparing PR folders, stuffing envelopes, emailing for events, and designing outreach media, such as flyers for open houses. All in all, Mr. Antigua seems to be appreciated by his coworkers not only for his natural charm, but because he is productive. Now let's just make sure he hands in the research paper outline and interview write-up on Friday!