Axe ’Em, Jacks!
NACOGDOCHES, Texas – Theatre majors from Stephen F. Austin State University made history recently as the first SFA student representatives to be selected to attend and perform at the national level of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. The students took top honors at the Region 6 KCACTF event in Abilene.
“I am overjoyed,” said Cleo House Jr., director of the SFA School of Theatre and Dance. “These students are proof that when you put in the work and have commitment to the craft, that the sky is the limit.”
Region 6 consists of colleges and universities from Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas and New Mexico.
Junior students Kiya Green, BFA candidate from Waxahachie, and her scene partner, Mariano Aguirre, BFA candidate from Little Elm, won the regional KCACTF Irene Ryan Scholarship competition. As a result, Green and Aguirre will represent Region 6 alongside seven other pairs of students from regions across the nation at the national festival in April in Washington, D.C. To earn their place at nationals, the students competed with various incarnations of two monologues and a scene over the course of three rounds.
Sophomore Kai Crumley, BFA candidate from Kingwood, and her scene partner, junior Olivia Wintz, BA candidate from Killeen, were selected as runners up in the Irene Ryan competition. Wintz was awarded the distinction of Best Partner among the more than 100 competition nominees in this area.
Both Green and Crumley will receive $500 scholarships from KCACTF.
Senior Danielle Wooden, BA candidate from Longview, earned top honors in the Design Tech Management - Stage Management Fellowship competition, and she will also attend the national KCACTF in Washington. Wooden will represent Region 6 alongside seven other stage mangers from across the nation where all will have an opportunity to present their work and network with student and professional stage managers.
“This is the first time that we have sent a stage management student to present at KCACTF,” said Professor Angela Bacarisse. “I am not surprised that Danielle’s work was chosen. She has worked with several faculty directors here at SFA, and I encouraged her to complete an internship last summer with the Texas Shakespeare Festival, working with professional theatre artists from all over the country. When our students lean in to opportunities like that, they learn what it takes to make it in their chosen field.”
Each April, the Kennedy Center welcomes about 125 outstanding theater students to the KCACTF National Festival. Student awardees in design, performance, directing, playwriting, stage management, dramaturgy, arts leadership and theatre criticism are invited from all eight regions. Through master classes, presentations, conversations and staged readings, students learn from and connect with established theatre artists, as well as their peers from across the country. Students will be eligible for various professional training opportunities, fellowships and awards based on their projects and work presented during the festival.
“No one is surprised that these particular students were recognized because they put in the work with each other and their professors to get themselves ready to perform at a level that would take them to nationals,” House said. “SFA has never had students be selected to attend nationals. The last time we came close was in spring 2018 when Ga'Brielle Charlot (BA '19) and her scene partner Alex Duty (BA '19) were runners up to nationals in the Irene Ryan acting competition. These students making it to nationals this year is another notch in the belt of SoTD and for SFA, putting us on the national stage and in the minds of professionals with an international reach. This means more internships and other opportunities for our students."
For more information about the School of Theatre and Dance, call (936) 468-4003 or visit sfasu.edu/theatre-dance.