This is the first time Daytona State has hosted the prestigious event, a prelude to a national competition that will take place this April at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Twelve Daytona State students are among those who will compete against students from more than 125 colleges and universities across the southeast for a chance to go to the national event.
“We are very fortunate to have been selected to host this event,” said college Theater Director Geoffrey Kershner, who helped bring the Region IV competition to Daytona State this year. “The competition is a great way to galvanize the students and let them see the level in which students at other institutions are working. The competitive nature of this event gives our students a real sense of what it’s really like in the world of theater.”
Students will vie for scholarships and a chance to advance to the national level in a variety of categories, including short plays, classical acting, music theatre, comedy acting, program directing and playwriting. Students also will compete in the areas of stage design, technical management, sound design, makeup, dramaturgy and a wide variety of other categories. Competitions will take place on the Daytona Beach Campus Theater Center and Goddard Theater, as well as downtown at the News-Journal Center. A number of workshops for students also will be featured during the festival, including a sound engineering component that will highlight the college’s state-of-the-art sound studio housed in the News-Journal Center. (View a pdf version of the week's program here.)
The Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival was started in 1969 with the goal of improving the quality of college theater in the United States. Today, it has grown to involve more than 18,000 students from 600 colleges and universities nationwide, where theater departments and student artists showcase their work and receive outside assessment by theater festival respondents.
While next week’s productions and workshops are not open to the public, special arrangements have been made with the University of Central Florida, a 2010 KCACTF regional winner, to give an encore performance of their play "Dames at Sea" at 2:30 p.m. on Feb. 6 at the News-Journal Center. The performance is free to Daytona State students, as well as Volusia and Flagler County students. Tickets for all others are $8 a person or $15 for two.
For more information, please call the News-Journal Center Box Office, (386) 506-3377. Tickets also are available at the box office beginning two hours before the performance.
For more information, please call the News-Journal Center Box Office, (386) 506-3377. Tickets also are available at the box office beginning two hours before the performance.
