Brooke Turell

          In the summer of 2022, I was given the opportunity to go on a study abroad trip with Clemson faculty members along with six other Clemson students. This program was six credit hours divided between two courses, one course that focused on theatre history in London and the other course focusing on an individualized internship. I ended up getting paired with an internship at The Blue Elephant Theatre, a fringe theatre located in south London. Although this internship placement was not what I had originally intended I did find that I have learned a variety of things through this experience which has allowed me to grow educationally and as an individual.

​

           Going into this program, I was not certain about my internship because of its disconnection to sign language and overall, I was not sure if it was going to be the right fit. With this, I have found that from any experience there is knowledge to be gained. Expanding on this thought, although my internship was not a signed language-based company, they did have a drive for bringing accessibility to the theatre, which is something I am passionate about. Some of the time I spent working at the Blue Elephant I was instructed to do tasks that allowed me to explore accessibility at a more local level. Such tasks consisted of, informing the staff about accessibility options, researching how we can make accessible shows an option in a low budget theatre, and creating plans for executing that research. In addition, I got the opportunity to speak with Jenny Skene, a captioner for the company StageTEXT that has much experience with bringing theatre’s captioned productions to make their shows accessible to larger audiences specifically in the UK. Each of these experiences were very informative and allowed me to see, investigate, and learn about all aspects of theatre access, not just in sign language. With this, I was clearly proven wrong about my originally impressions of The Blue Elephant as there are always room to learn from the people around you.

​

            Besides my discoveries on accessibility, I did find that I learned a lot about myself and what kind of experiences I can handle. Initially, traveling independently in an unknown area was something I found really intimidating. As I continued to go to my internship, I found that it was not as scary as it might have seemed. As the program progressed, I found that I was traveling to more and more places on my own as my independence and comfortability grew.

​

            In addition to my independence, I also feel that this internship helped me gain a larger global perspective through learning about theatre and London in general. Although the spoken languages in both the US and the UK are the same these places speak a different variation of sign language. While in London I was given the chance to see how the different languages are used and what parts of language were similar. Adding to that idea, what I found to be fascinating was the accessibility options for deaf theatre goers in London. I was impressed to see the number of options that were available to those who are deaf and hard of hearing interested in attending performance. Compared to the US, UK theatre has a number of options allowing not only professional productions but also local community theatre's to be accessible. Although this is true, it is clear that neither the US nor the UK offer full accessibility to deaf attendees. Along with my reflections on sign language specifically, living in the city of London also offered an immersive cultural situation that was different than anything else I had previously experienced. Weekly, our program traveled around different areas of London learning about their history and customs. One trip I particularly enjoyed was attending high tea in the afternoon. Before attending tea we had spent the day learning about the history of tea and how it became an important custom in British culture. Afternoon tea is meant to have specific traditions such as what is served, how the food is eaten, what is worn, and the way the tea is meant to be stirred. It was exciting to get to experience those traditions physically and understand the importance of that social event.

​

            It is clear that throughout my time abroad I was able to have a unique experience learning about the city of London while also living in it. This abroad program was able to give me a larger global perspective of the world, specifically in Europe, allowing me to grow as a person. In addition, my international internship was able to give me a new perspective on working in a foreign place as it allowed me to see how work environments can changed based off of location. Overall, I’m thankful for this experience as I can acknowledge the impact it has already made on my life and education.