February 11-16 the Kennedy Center hosted the American college theatre festival (KCACTF) for region 8 consisting of central and southern California, Arizona, Southern Nevada, Utah, Hawaii, and Guam. This year the festival also hosted region 7 Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Northern California, Northern Nevada, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming.
This festival highlights many forms of theatre and what goes into making a production from designers to performers to the journalists who write critiques of the plays.
The main event is the Irene Ryan Acting Scholarship, named after the American actress, which focuses on acting in a monologue and scene. The winner of this scholarship also moves on to compete in the national festival in April.
Three students from BC were semi-Finalists, Savanna Lux, Carissa Halbawachs and Jesse Magdaleno. Magdaleno also moved onto the Finals in The Irene Ryans and the Musical Theatre Initiatives.
Students from BC participated in many programs, The Irene Ryans, the Musical Theatre Initiatives, Design and Technology Management and The Institute for Theatre Journalism and Advocacy (ITJA).
For the first time BC has a student going to the national festival.
Jesse Magdaleno is going to the national festival for the Musical Theatre Initiatives.
The festival hosted many workshops for students to participate in from different forms of dancing to a clowning workshop.
I personally participated in ITJA as I am a double major in Theatre and Journalism.
This program offered students an opportunity to learn from a long-time theatre critic and to get a chance to critique performances at the festival.
While I did get to learn from a professional about theatre criticism, we were not given the opportunity to write critics of the shows invited to the festival.
Whether through a miscommunication or misunderstanding between the reporter and the festival or something else, students did not get the full opportunity that was advertised for the ITJA program.
Other than that, the 5 day festival was a great opportunity to watch performers and performances from colleges that most students wouldn’t ever get the chance to see.
The schedule was packed every day with things to do with performances, competition rounds, workshops and tours.
For theatre majors it is a good opportunity to be immersed in all thing’s theatre for a week.
