Ask Bennington alumni to recount their most remarkable tales from their college years, and you're likely to hear yarns about outrageously imaginative faculty and fellow students; ingenious and unlikely social events; the "aha" moments that shaped their own work and lives.

But you'll also hear tales from across the country and across the globe-set in political campaigns and research laboratories, law offices and art museums, hospitals and theaters, newspapers and national parks. That's because, for each year they attend the College, Bennington students must go out into the world to complete seven-week winter internships in areas that fascinate them and complement their studies.

Field Work Term, going strong since the College's founding, brings new stories each year. Here's one such tale from FWT 2006. Stay tuned for more over the next few weeks, and be sure to check out last week's story on Owen Lubozynski '07 at the Buffalo Field Campaign.

Alex Katz '09: Jim Henson Company, Hollywood, CA

Though Alex Katz '09 claims he applied for an internship at the Jim Henson Company "on a lark"--his first reaction to the job listing was, in his words, "Oh, hey, I love the Muppets!"--it's clear that something much deeper than whim and whimsy was at work during his 2006 Field Work Term. By the end of his seven weeks in Hollywood, the first-year student had pitched a TV show.

The potent combination of fun, adventurousness, and ambition is something Katz holds in common with the Jim Henson Company itself, which sums up its history by simply stating that it "has grown from a small group of talented performers, writers, and technical wizards, to an international presence whose works have touched the lives of millions," living and working by the conviction that "a focused group of individuals with an inspired idea can still turn the world on its head." The company's work--from Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock, and the Muppets to films like The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth--brims with the energy that comes from brilliance and imagination combined with a healthy dose of mayhem and silliness.

Katz was right at home in the company's Creative Affairs department. "I read a lot of sci-fi/fantasy scripts and novels, and wrote synopses and comments on them for the executives. The biggest insight I got is how incredibly complicated the entire process is-the process of making an idea into something more in the film industry."

Even so, Katz forged at least one passageway for a promising writer in that film industry maze. "I was given this long sci-fi book series; basically, it's a western in space. Really well written. Anyway, I read the entire series in about three days, barely ate or slept. It was that good. The next day, I grabbed the primetime TV exec and I managed to wrangle a few minutes of his time. I gave him the books and spent fifteen minutes pitching it as a TV series, the different possible storylines, character progressions, even how things could change from season to season. Then he just looked at me and said, 'Okay. I'll get our book scout rolling on buying the rights. Nice catch, Alex.'"

Impressive resume items and great stories (his tale of meeting Tim Burton is best told in person) aren't the only things Katz gleaned from his time at the Jim Henson Company. He also gained insight about his future career that is, not surprisingly, very much in line with the Henson school of thought on changing the world. "As a result of this internship, I've decided I really want to work in the business aspect of the entertainment industry. It seems to me that, if someone wants to really improve the system, there's no other way to do it than from the inside.

"And if that TV show I pitched airs, I'm calling them fifty times a day for an associate producer credit."

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