Students Participate in Regional KCA Theater College Festival

Reported by Marlee Baker

A group of 23 George Fox University (GFU) theater students traveled to Colorado State University to compete in the Kennedy Center American Theater College Festival (KCATCF) from Feb. 16-22. 

After a week of showcases, workshops, symposiums, and scholarship-based competitions, the GFU team emerged with several awards, and a renewed sense of confidence and inspiration for upcoming endeavors.

There were multiple categories students could participate in, such as set design, costume design and various other competitions requiring individual and group performances. College theater programs from nine different states attended. 

Senior Hope Bellinger won 1st place for her role as director. She and her team of student actors performed a scene from Uncommon Women and Others by Wendy Wasserstein, and eventually progressed on to the final round. 

“Our final presentation went wonderfully. I was so proud of the actors in my scene, and, as I told them later, they made me look so good—their skills really shone,” she said. 

When Bellinger learned that she had won, she “spent the next few days in shock, really--it was so surreal. I was glad of the three hour flight home, because it gave me a space to think. Winning this competition has potentially--and probably--changed the course of my life, so it's been a lot to process.”

In April, Bellinger will travel to Washington, D.C. for the KCATCF National Festival at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. During this trip, she will attend masterclasses and theater performances alongside the other student directors. The week will close with an awards ceremony, where some students will even receive directing fellowships.

Senior Araya Glancy also won an award, claiming 3rd place in the region’s Stage Management competition. As part of the competition, she had to present the stage manager’s prompt book she used for the 2019 Fall production of “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder.” The book included all the cues for the lights, sound, and actors, as well as detailed documentation of every rehearsal and performance.

Glancy received feedback from the respondents that her prompt book was very well organized, clear, and complete. “I was proud of the work I did,” Glancy said. “After the feedback session, I was bombarded with the fact that my work was extravagant compared to some other competitors.” Receiving such tangible affirmation reinforced Glancy’s confidence in her future career as a stage manager. “I am walking away [knowing] I am competent. I know what I’m doing, and I’m good at it.”

A few students also had the opportunity to participate in a new and experimental competition, called Devising. Teams had to prepare an original piece of art that corresponded to a given prompt, and then would be judged on their performance.

Sophomore Jonathan Billington was a part of this team. As directed by senior Trevor Braskcamp, this team of students sought to explore the prompt of “misalignment” by practicing improvisation through a variety of theatrical viewpoints. In the end, the team chose to construct a story around the themes of co-dependence and homophobia within familial relationships. When the final 25-minute piece was performed during the competition, it was met with positive feedback from the respondents.

“The feedback was really nice because I didn’t actually realize that the piece was good until we performed it, because we had been working on it for so long,” Billington said. “But when we were doing it, I could feel we had done good work. I was super happy with what we had done.”

This was the first year sophomore Elizabeth Herbert was able to attend KCATCF. After this experience, she had a better understanding of how to participate in holy competition, an idea her professor likes to emphasize to students. “When you audition for a part, you are competing with other people in the room for a part,” Herbert said. “But it’s not so much as an aggressive ‘I’m attacking you,’ kind of way, but more like, ‘I’m at this level. Let’s raise each other up to higher levels’.”