KCACTF: The Awards

The 43rd region 7 Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival concluded on Friday night with the 16 Irene Ryan acting scholarships finalists and their partners presenting their acting scenes for an all-festival audience in the Van Duzer theatre, followed by the regional festival awards.

The festival also included the New West Drama Conference, which sponsored some of the awards. The following is an unofficial summary of some of the awards presented. (Some of the awards had already been announced.)

One of the four productions featured during the festival was selected to be considered for performance at the Kennedy Center finals in April. This year's selection was Up from the University of Idaho.

In playwriting, the festival received 131 entries, consisting of 24 full length plays (5 of which had been produced), 43 one act plays and 64 ten minute plays. The full length play winners were Mattie Roquel Rydalch for Strange Attractors, produced by the University of Idaho, and Sera by Angela Santillo, produced by St. Mary's College of California.

The short play winners were Jesse Mu-En Shao and Nathaniel Patterson, both of Washinton State University. The winners for ten minute plays were Nicholas Pappas of San Francisco State and Lojo Simon of the U. of Idaho. The Northwest Playwrights Alliance award went to Adam Harrell.

In the Irene Ryan scholarship competition for actors, the top awards went to Olivia Hughes and Luke Peckinpaugh. First alternate was Justin Shepherd, second alternate was Liam Callister, and the best classical performer was Adam Syron.

The directing winner was James Twerdale of Western Washington University. Runner-up was Erin Lucas of the University of Portland.

Design awards winners included Jamie Tait for scenery, Clare Parker for costume, Meghan Gray for lighting, and HSU's Kitty Grenot for hair and makeup.

For scholarly papers, the graduate winner was Kato Buss, and the undergraduate winner was Grace Beckett. The critics award went to Kiki Penoyer, with Austin Bridges the runner-up. The top award in dramaturgy went to Paul Adolfson of Seattle Pacific.

Among the technical awards were several in the Tech Olympics won by Boise State, Diablo Valley College and Santa Rosa Junior College. St. Mary's College won the coveted Golden Hand Truck for the most efficient load-in and load-out of the productions, for Angels in America: Millennium Approaches. Technical Supervisor for the festival--and HSU professor--Jody Sekas made the presentation, noting that Humboldt is famous for two things: environmental awareness and--"something I enjoy partaking in--great theatre." Since the host school designs the actual award, HSU used that first theme to construct the hand truck out of recycled cans and bottles.