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Karen Garcia |
At 12:05 a.m., most places on campus have grown quiet. But Mago Hunt is wide-awake, filled with students lining the auditorium.
For theater students preparing for the American College Theater Festival (ACTF), this is a typical Wednesday night.
Hosted by Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington, and sponsored by the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., the ACTF takes place from Feb. 17-21.
The ACTF groups participating universities into eight regions. UP is in Region VII, which consists of the Pacific Northwest and most of the Rocky Mountain states. UP theater students with a variety of interests in the theater are attending the festival,
Professor Mindi Logan, once Region VII chair of the ACTF, coaches and advises the nine UP actors nominated this year for the prestigious Irene Ryan Acting Scholarship.
“They call it a scholarship, but it’s a competition,” Logan said. “What’s great, though, is how supportive everyone on our team is of each other. They’ll all come to my hotel room and we’ll push the furniture aside and practice.”
Each regional scholarship winner is invited to the national festival at the Kennedy Center to compete for the national scholarship. Regional winners receive $500, and first-place national winners receive $5000. Scholarship money can be used to fund undergraduate or graduate studies.
Nominated students must prepare three pieces: a couple of two-person scenes and a monologue.
“I encourage them to look for material where they are vulnerable, charming, and funny,” Logan said. “Each work is individual to each student, and suited to their strengths. You can tell a lot about a person by what material they choose.”
Although seniors Amy Billroth-MacLurg and Shen Telles will be returning to the festival for the third time, this year marks their first time as nominees of the acting scholarship.
In addition to competing in the Irene Ryan Acting Scholarship, Telles is looking forward to entering her costume design for last year’s production of “Woyzeck” in the Design Technology and Management Competition.
Telles first jumped on stage in a fifth grade production of “Dolly Holiday,” a Dolly Parton-themed Christmas show.
“Thank god I didn’t know how embarrassing that was,” Telles said.
By sophomore year of high school, Telles knew that she belonged in the world of theater. When she visited UP for the first time as a prospective student, she immediately felt drawn to the close-knit relationships she saw between the theater students.
“I was treated so well by them when I visited, they were just so gracious,” Telles said. “They let me step onto the stage--and to get to be up there as a lowly high school student was just like ‘Ah!’”
The competitions at ACTF this week are helping Telles enter the world she’s always felt devoted to.
“[The festival] is a chance to show my peers and others in the theater work that I’m very proud of,” Telles said. “To show what I’m capable of doing.”
While Telles found her calling early, Billroth-MacLurg hadn’t originally considered pursuing theater past her high school elective classes. She started her freshman year at UP as a biology major with hopes of becoming an epigeneticist, but soon found that her passion for the theater was overwhelming.
“I got so sad without it, and it surprised the crap out of me,” Billroth-MacLurg said. “As much as I loved science I didn’t know what to do with my life without theater, without that passion. I just can’t escape it.”
Now, Billroth-MacLurg plans to enter her stage management book from “1940’s Radio Hour” in the Design Technology and Management Competition, and sees the festival as an opportunity to develop her skills as an interdisciplinary artist.
“In conjunction with all of the competitions, there are workshops, and a lot of other opportunities to learn a craft or a skill within our art that you normally wouldn’t get exposed to at UP,” Billroth-MacLurg said. “The festival lends diversity to our education.”
After graduation, theater majors have several work options depending on their concentration, including acting, directing, costume and makeup design, stage management, and dramaturgy (the theory and practice of dramatic composition). The ACTF provides opportunities for those working in the different realms of the theater to network, learn, audition and showcase their respective talents.
In January, Telles and Billroth-MacLurg, along with two other senior actors, traveled to New York City to audition for graduate schools. Their days and nights are filled with preparations for the festival, play rehearsals, work and homework on top of everything else.
“The life of an actor is difficult,” Logan said. “But it’s thrilling to have these kids come in as freshmen and see how they grow year by year with all their training. They just have to keep working.”
Karen Garcia is a reporter for The Beacon. She can be reached at garciaka17@up.edu.
