Insider Scoop: Current Press Corps Member Sumeya

Heard about the TeenTix Press Corps? This radical program allows teens to learn, practice, and publish arts criticism. For more information or to get involved, click here! We wanted the insider scoop, so we enlisted the help of an active TeenTix Press Corps writer and arts-goer - Sumeya Block!

Sumeya is a rising sophomore at the Downtown School, just blocks from TeenTix headquarters! She got a TeenTix Pass at the age of 13 when The 5th Avenue Theatre put on a production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. She desperately wanted to attend the performance but tickets were way out of her price range. Luckily, she discovered TeenTix just in time and got herself a ticket for just $5 - she hasn’t looked back since! When TeenTix showed up at her school, she was introduced to the Press Corps and was excited to learn that writing about the arts was even a possibility! Sumeya applied to be a writer in the TeenTix Newsroom and soon after took an Intensive Workshop where she honed her arts journalism skills. “I didn’t realize my love of writing and my love of art could come together; I never thought I could potentially use that as a job”.

The first show she was assigned to review was The Turn of the Screw at Seattle Opera. She walked in with a notebook and felt like she was undercover - “it was really thrilling”! Attending art as a writer has taught her to “look at and interpret every detail,” and her art viewing has changed since she joined the program – now she’s “eating up every detail”! Through TeenTix and the Press Corps she has gotten to see all types of art that she would never have attended before; her favorite new art experience so far has been Unexpected Production’s improv version of A Christmas Carol.

Her favorite part of being in the Press Corps newsroom is the community that TeenTix has fostered by “giving us the opportunity to use our voices”. She has developed relationships with her fellow Newsroom writers, TeenTix employees, and teaching artists, and knows that she can always come visit TeenTix HQ when she has a question. Sumeya is a big believer in the work TeenTix is doing and says “it’s crucial to fund the Press Corps because it’s giving young people so many opportunities to get to explore what we want to do and to have a place in the arts community - which I think is really beautiful”.

We think so too. Thanks for sharing your critical voice and your arts advocacy, Sumeya! If you believe in making free programs like the Press Corps available to any interested teen, DONATE TODAY!