GFU Theatre Department Wins Seven Regional Awards

Reported by: Aurora Biggers

NEWBERG, Ore.—George Fox University (GFU) theatre students amassed a more than modest set of wins at the annual Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF) this year, with four students receiving seven awards in the region.

Students Allie Schluchter, Hope Bellinger, Jonathan Billington, and Elyse Bradford received awards in costuming, sound, lighting, and acting. Last year, Bellinger won the region in directing and then spent a week learning at the National Festival hosted in D.C. This year, she won both the regional award for sound design and the Jane Childs: Stagecraft Institute of Las Vegas Award.

Billington also won a Jane Childs award for light design. Both will be heading on a week-long, all-expenses paid trip to the Stagecraft Institute of Las Vegas for an intensive class in their respective design areas. Billington won two other awards for lighting, including an honorable mention for Silent Sky, and VectorWorks—granting a free year of the company’s design program. Bradford received the Cal Arts Summer Acting Scholarship for California Institute of the Arts, and Schluchter won an award for costume design in Passage.

GFU’s theatre department isn’t new to the award circuit, having won more than 20 regional awards from KCACTF in the past five years, but this year is particularly significant as the awards came on the heels of financial cuts to the department.

GFU released an extensive list of changes to the University’s academic portfolio, and theatre was downsized to a minor-only option, though it should be noted that the GFU site does not currently list theatre as a program option as a major or minor. Two weeks after this announcement, the theatre department received their significant accolades.

In the wake of major program changes and the artistic challenges of COVID-19, GFU theatre director Rhett Luedtke says he is pleased with the department’s performance, remarking, “GFU theatre does a really good job competing against the top theatre schools across our 10 state region. It has been a joy to receive that level of recognition throughout the years (and especially this year in the midst of Covid-19).”

GFU competes within the largest geographic region in the country alongside universities and colleges from Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, northern and central California, Nevada, and Hawaii.

The theatre department hopes to continue competing annually at KCACTF, despite blows to the program’s size and funding.