TJSL 1L Ryan French is looking forward to an internship in New York this summer at Columbia Artist Theatricals (CAT) - a subsidiary of Columbia Artist Management Inc. The company "specializes in the booking and tour management of live performances on a worldwide basis," according to French.
Passionate about entertainment law, French attended a conference in New York in January of APAP (Association of Performing Arts Presenters.) At the conference, different performers, musicians, and producers set up booths to market themselves or the acts they represented to different venue managers that were looking to fill their theater schedules for the up-coming year and into early 2013.
At the conference, he shadowed CAT's Vice President and Manager of the Contracting Department while she met with clients and started preliminary negotiations with them for booking the shows that the company represents (some of the more well-known are Chicago, Blue Man Group, Cats, Stomp, and A Chorus Line, but there are others - 16 shows in all).
Over the summer, he'll be working in New York City at the CAT's offices in Manhattan. He has yet to get a complete job description, but does know that he'll be involved with the contract department and working on different booking projects. While speaking with the President of CAT, Gary McAvay, French was assured that he “would not be a coffee runner.” McAvay said the interns are expected to work hard and are given a lot of responsibility.