Justine Katzenbach started acting at the age of eight, when she was cast as one of the orphans in a community theatre production of Annie. “I was somewhat shy,” she recalls, “so it was beyond exciting to be involved in my town’s community theater, which I believed to hold prestige and glamour on par with Broadway.”

Acting still holds that excitement for her, and if she hasn’t quite made it to Broadway yet, she has come close—within about a mile, in fact. Last summer, she was an intern with PTP—formerly known as the Potomac Theatre Project—helping to stage three plays at the company’s off-Broadway theatre.

Middlebury College has collaborated with PTP since the company was founded in 1987. This relationship has enabled students to receive hands-on professional experience in acting, technical theatre, and arts administration and to begin their theatre careers under the tutelage of some of New York’s and Washington’s most proficient actors and directors. Some 200 students have been PTP company members; many are now returning as members of the professional acting company.

Earning a place with PTP was one of the highlights of Justine’s Middlebury experience. “This is unlike any other opportunity for undergraduates,” she says. “PTP gives you the chance to decide if you’ve chosen the right career path. And if you do decide to go ahead with your choice, it gives you a taste of exactly what it’s like to work professionally.”

Justine assisted Middlebury Professor Cheryl Faraone, one of the company’s founders and directors, with public relations and marketing. She also had a prominent role in one of the plays, Scenes From An Execution.

The play deals with the complicated and often contentious relationship between the artist and the state. It tells the story of Galactica, a 15th century Venetian painter, commissioned by the Doge of Venice to portray the Battle of Lepanto. Galactica was played by Jan Maxwell, who had been nominated for a Tony Award in 2007. Justine played her daughter, Dementia.

“I learned more working with PTP than in any of my acting classes,” Justine observes. “I was really impressed by the work ethic of the Equity actors. When we started rehearsals, they had already done 90 percent of their homework. Rehearsal became a chance to try out what already you’d already been practicing.

“Most of my scenes were with Jan Maxwell. It was incredible to me that I was working with professional actors of her stature. I learned a lot about how to explore a scene in different ways, testing approaches, so in performance it just flows naturally.”

Now Justine is preparing to move to New York to look for work in the theatre—a prospect that she finds less daunting than you might suppose. If you go to New York and interview, there’s a whole community of Midd alums who are already established in the business,” she says. “Once they know your name, you have a network of people who are ready to help.”

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