8227
Theatre students perform at regional Kennedy Center festival
The Theatre Department took 18 students to Los Angeles for The Kennedy Center American College Theater Regional Festival. KCACTF is an annual festival in eight regions across the U.S. that showcases outstanding college theatre performances, as well as professional development workshops.
This year at the Region VIII Festival, Fort Lewis College Theatre performed in the evening of invitational scenes with a scene from the show “I’M NATIVE AND…”, written by students and directed by alumna Natalie Benally (Theatre, ’10). FLC was one of nine schools nominated by KCACTF for the evening performance. Students also participated in individual events, including directing and stage management events, acting competitions, and presentations of technical theatre portfolios. There were also opportunities to audition for graduate programs and summer stock theatres.
FLC competes within Region VIII with theatre programs from Arizona, Central and Southern California, Hawaii, Southern Nevada, and Utah colleges. Though the students didn’t advance to the national competition, Kristian Sigloch received the Focal Press Award for his sound design of the FLC fall mainstage production “Teaching Disco Square Dancing to our Elders” and many students got callbacks for grad programs.
“The benefits to this festival are phenomenal,” says Ginny Davis, Theatre Department chair. “Our students get to see what other students their age are producing, other plays, and other scenes. The learning opportunity is huge.”
In addition to presenting a scene from “I’M NATIVE AND…”, Benally and a student panel facilitated a festival workshop on diversity in theatre programming and how to create a safe space for students to explore sensitive topics while creating original works to share with an audience.
“We’re about making everyone’s voice and everyone’s story matter and telling that collectively instead of as one story, one voice,” says Davis.
This was also the impetus for creating the Indigenous Artists Festival, held for the first time last fall. The biannual event celebrates indigenous artists not only in theatre, but visual art, film, poetry, music, and dance. Davis says the festival was meant to open doors for Native American art students and to give them a voice. It was a huge success for the department, and the next festival in 2020 will offer more events and will be in collaboration with the Community Concert Hall, Dancing Earth of Santa Fe, and others.
“One of things we find is that there is a limited amount of material that helps underrepresented populations tell their story, so either it doesn’t get told or the same story gets told again and again,” says Davis. “We want to continue to celebrate all different kinds of indigenous artists.”
Support Fort Lewis College Theatre and the Indigenous Artists Festival