As the month of January wrapped up, so did the annual Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF).
Every year, students from our region, which consists of schools from seven different states, attend a festival that features many tools to help theatre artists grow, such as workshops and competitions. Every year, SAU theatre participants make full use of these opportunities and grow immensely throughout the process.
One of the most competitive events at KCACTF is the Irene Ryan acting competition, named after the woman who played Granny on The Beverly Hillbillies. Ryan made it her mission to support young artists by giving them a chance to win scholarship money and professional performance opportunities.
During the school year, respondents travel from different universities to see other colleges' productions and choose two performers to advance to the preliminary round of the acting competition. This requires the performers to choose scene partners who will assist them with two contrasting scenes and a monologue that all come in under six minutes.
This year, SAU had five nominees and partners for the Irene Ryan scholarship:
- senior Sarah Goodall with junior Mel Maylum
- junior T.J. Green with junior Jessica Karolczak
- junior Colin Evers with Karolczak
- sophomore Tyler Hughes with junior Abbie Carpenter
- sophomore Ellie Larson with first-year Joe Lasher
After preliminaries, both Hughes and Larson made it to the semi-final round.
For those who are more musically centric, KCACTF also features a Musical Theatre Intensive competition. This is an event in which participants perform a three-minute musical theatre song. The top 20 performers then go on to participate in a musical theatre cabaret and work with musical theatre professionals at the end of the week.
SAU had eight students throw their hat in the ring for the MTI singing competition: Lasher, Goodall, Evers, and Karolczak in addition to senior Christian Colmenares, sophomore Allison Hutson, first-year K Hampton, and sophomore Luke Peterson. Lasher ended up being the first SAU student since 2014 to make it to the MTI cabaret. He performed the funny, yet honest, song "I Believe" from The Book of Mormon.
Senior Rebecca Moews also participated in the MTI dance competition after spending two days learning the tap dance that served as her audition. After her hard work, she was chosen to be featured at the cabaret. She then had the opportunity to work with professional choreographers and perform a challenging tap number at the musical theatre cabaret.
Green was also accepted into the festival's long-form improv team. His team, The Loopers, won the improv competition thanks to the audience's ecstatic reaction to their performance.
Finally, for students who enjoy making theatre without the heat of the spotlight, there was the SDC (Society for Directors and Choreographers) directing competition. In this event, students sign up to direct a 10-minute scene from a list of selected plays, and they prepare the scene ahead of time. This year, senior Kendall McKasson participated with her interpretation of The Baltimore Waltz by Paula Vogel. Her actors included Green, Larson, and Peterson.
Ultimately, like every year, SAU theatre students took the challenges and opportunities presented to them by the festival and ran with them. The Theatre Department is proud of its students as they lived up to the standards established by previous SAU students at KCACTF.
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