Adelphi Makes Its Mark at the American College Theatre Festival

by Heather K. Burns

During winter break, nineteen Adelphi theatre majors headed back to Garden City for a day of rehearsals in preparation to proudly represent our school at The American College Theatre Festival (ACTF) at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA. The Festival featured a mounting of the Adelphi production, The Big Fat Naked Truth. Eight Students from Adelphi, more than any other year, were also showcased as regional finalists in the extremely competitive Irene Ryan Acting Competition

The Festival is a prestigious national function affiliated with the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and has separate regional conferences celebrating theatre through performances, competitions, and workshops in an all-encompassing five days of complete theatre immersion. Adelphi received rave reviews at the competition with one adjudicator commenting, "it is very obvious that Adelphi has a lot of raw talent."

The competitions are a large part of the festival and draw many students. The Irene Ryan Acting Scholarship is possibly the largest competition in the festival consisting of over two hundred students. Irene Ryan, who was featured on the television show, the Beverley Hillbillies (Granny) set up this annual scholarship in 1972.

Irene Ryan candidates are chosen from the casts of department productions. One or two ACTF adjudicators attend a performance of each mainstage production at Adelphi and give feedback immediately afterwards to the cast, technical crew, and director. He or she will also choose an actor whose performance he feels shows excellence at this level of theatrical experience to participate in the Irene Ryan competition. From the Spring 2000 semester, actresses Erin Mallon (Jeanine) and Carly Lynn Russell (Joyce) were nominated for Caryl Churchill's Top Girls and Angela DiGennaro (Rosemary) and Joseph Minoso (Howard) for William Inge's Picnic. From this past semester, Fall 2000, the nominees from The Odd Couple were Kathryn Jonell Lasky (Vera) and Heather K. Burns (Florence). As well as the entire cast of The Big Fat Naked Truth getting to perform the show, Nic Heppe (Lloyd) and Marilyn Torres (Twinks) were also nominated for the Irene Ryan Scholarship competition.

Once at the festival, each candidates' "audition" consists of two different pieces including a scene and either a monologue or a song. Each nominee must bring a scene partner who can not be another Irene Ryan contender. The theatre majors who attended ACTF as scene partners were seniors Karla Cassidy, Mary Egan, Tressider Gillette; juniors: Valerie Chandler, Dimitri Meskouris, Jonny Peters, Adam Sukert; and sophomore Ben Gooch.

Along with the three mainstage productions being adjudicated, Adelphi also had their first ever black box performance participate, The Big Fat Naked Truth written by playwright Gary Garrison. This blackbox went over so well that director and performing arts professor, Maggie Lally arranged to have the show remounted the month after its first run so that ACTF adjudicators could see it. The uniqueness of this piece made it one of several workshop productions that were invited to show their full production at the festival.

After the initial round of auditions ended, at 6pm, the hundreds of participants all gathered in the lobby of Carnegie Mellon's performing arts complex to hear the list of thirty-two names of the semi-finalists. It seemed like so many names were called before the group finally heard Marilyn Torres and shortly after Joseph Minoso and then Angela DiGenarro. There was a vast array of material that people chose to audition with and the judges were looking for many different qualities in their performance.

The Adelphi students were very proud seeing their fellow actors perform. Torres' scene partner was junior, Johnny Peters ("Francis" from Big Fat Naked Truth), Minoso's partner was Tressider Gillette ("Mrs. Potts" from Picnic), and DiGennaro's partner was Mary Egan ("Millie" from Picnic). Only thirty-two couples were selected for the semi-finals out of over two hundred competitors. Out of these thirty-two couples sixteen were selected to move on to the finals. Adelphi was well represented again, as two actors were chosen as finalists: seniors, Angela DiGenarro and Joseph Minoso.

The production of The Big Fat Naked Truth was on Saturday. Sophomore Sabrina Giamundo (sound board operator) and Freshman Naima Moffett-Warren (stage manager) were extremely helpful in attending the festival to help out with the technical aspects of the performance.

Along with these achievements the students also found time to attend several workshops, including one hosted by local university, C.W. Post. During the festival, Lally was able to get to know some of their faculty and decided to ry to form an alliance rather than being competing schools.

Chairman of the the Performing Arts, Nick Petron was extremely happy with the productive stint in Pittsburg and is "very proud of Maggie, our visiting professor and for the students in distinguishing themselves in this very important venue."

The students were very gracious for this amazing opportunity and thank Maggie for all her work with them and especially to the Dean's and Provost's offices for getting them the funding they needed to make their trip.