Twelve Keene State Theater students traveled to Connecticut for the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival.
The Region 1 [New England] festival took place from January 30 to February 3 at Central Connecticut State University and featured a number of workshops and competitions.
“You have professors from other schools, you have guest artists from across the nation, you have Broadway equity actors, down to equity stage management,” said Theater And Dance Department Chair Kirstin O’Brien. “Everyone comes together.”
The invited students were featured in acting, light and sound design, stage management and props.
“The group that went to represent Keene State, they now have a special experience,” said O’Brien.
O’Brien said that her favorite part of the festival is “seeing our students operate outside of Keene.”
“They get to meet other voices, meet other opinions and allow themselves to find themselves in a ‘outside of Keene’ world,” she said.
O’Brien also enjoyed seeing, “Our students taking ownership of knowing what they do well, being able to talk about it with professionals, and the professionals saying ‘You did that well. Congratulations. It was awesome.”
Sophomore Amanda Sennett made it to the finals of the Irene Ryan Scholarship, along with her partner senior Wilson Hines. She also made it to the Musical Theatre Competition Finals. Hines and sophomore Caroline Catino made it to the Semifinals of the Acting competition.
“It was awesome to work with Amanda,” said O’Brien. “It’s been a while since we had somebody from Musical Theatre go on to the finals.”
For Design and Technical Theatre, senior Skyla Carrasquillo won the Sound Design competition, and will compete in the National Festival held in Washington D.C in April. Carrasquillo has previously done work for Fun Home and The Metromaniacs at Keene State.
Sophomore Mackenzie Mann also won an Honorable Mention for her Prop Design for The Metromaniacs.
O’Brien’s biggest piece of advice for her students is, “to remain themselves.”
“Do not ever think that you have to change who you are to get a job or to get the feedback you want,” she said. “Own what you do and what you do well, and know how to share that with your audience, whoever that audience may be. And walk away without the expectation of getting a reward for it. The reward is that you are owning what you do and what you do well.”
Carrasquillo and Sennett did not attend their scheduled interviews with The Equinox by press time.
Emily Sloane can be contacted at
esloane@kscequinox.com
