So, I wasn’t supposed to even be at KCACTF this year. But I got a call from a friend who needed a favor, and I went to help out for a few days. I’m so glad that I did. I love the festival—all the students fluttering with nervous excitement in line for Irene Ryans at […]
I saw this show a while back, and when I didn’t write about it in a timely fashion, I figured I would skip it. But I can’t stop thinking about it, so here we are. The show, directed by Ben Lambert, was an all-female production of Caryl Churchill’s 1976 play about a 17th-Century witch hunt. […]
Preparing to see American Idiot was kind of nerve-wracking. I hadn’t seen the show before, but I have a history with Green Day. Dookie was the first album I bought myself as a middle-schooler. “Good Riddance/Time of Your Life” was the prom song for our class and everyone else who graduated that year (JC reminded […]
I spent my birthday week in Montclair, New Jersey, helping to organize and run the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival for Region 2. It’s my last year as the workshops coordinator, and I’m proud to say we had over 100 workshops, in every area of theater. We had to cancel a few due to weather issues (we […]
I’ve been wanting to get over to West Liberty University for ages, to see what Michael Aulick is doing. I know Michael because we’re both on leadership for KCACTF Region 2, and I’ve been impressed with the work his students have brought to the festival, as well as with his intense recruiting. At a time […]
Let me tell you, it is a weird thing to see 18-year-olds in 2018 perform a play about being on the brink of turning 30 in 1990. This production was great and interesting–and also kind of surreal. The problem, I think, with doing Tick, Tick…Boom! right now is that it isn’t far enough away, but it […]
I saw Men on Boats at Bridgewater College as a participating production for KCACTF. It was fantastic. The script tells the story of the Powell Expedition, while asking questions about the typical story, which, of course, we only have from Powell himself. One cool thing about this script is that the playwright, Jaclyn Backhaus, said that she […]
The Wolves is being performed literally everywhere right now. If you are in the United States, the odds that there is a performance of it this weekend within a hundred miles of your present location are very high–and I recommend that you go avail yourself of the opportunity to see it. I hadn’t seen it […]
I saw As You Like It as a participating production for KCACTF Region 2. This production did some interesting work in terms of gender bending. The wicked duke was a female actor in a dress, but with a mustache–sort of gender nonbinary, I guess. Touchstone had half of their costume as a female and half male, […]
TW: This response mentions suicide. I’ve probably mentioned that one super fun thing I get to do is respond to college shows for the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF). I enjoy traveling to these shows, talking with students about their work and their process, and getting a feel for the kind of work […]