Theatre Students, Faculty Receive National, Regional Recognition
The Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival recognized students and faculty in the Department of Theatre and Dance this year.
by Delaney Gladson
Above (l–r): Journey Townsend and Brandi Smalls in CofC’s production of Home (Photo by David Mandel)
This spring, students and faculty in the College of Charleston Department of Theatre and Dance received regional and national acclaim from the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF) for several of their impressive productions from the 2023–24 and 2024–25 seasons.
CofC productions recognized by KCACTF this year include Dracula, The Importance of Being Earnest and Home. Individual students were nominated for their contributions as performers, designers, stage managers and assistant directors.
KCACTF is an annual festival involving 18,000 students from colleges and universities across the country. The program honors excellence in overall production and offers recognition to individual student artists through awards and scholarships in arts leadership, design, technology and management, directing, dramaturgy, performance, playwriting, and theatre journalism and advocacy. KCACTF aims to promote and celebrate the finest and most diverse work produced by colleges and universities, provide opportunities for students to showcase their work and develop professionalism, and promote distinguished productions of diverse plays in colleges and universities.
In total, 24 students from the College were nominated at the regional level, allowing them to attend the KCACTF Region IV festival in February and compete for national honors. Five faculty members in the Department of Theatre and Dance also received Certificates of Merit at the regional level for their work as mentors, directors and designers:
- Lauren Duffie ’99, Assistant Professor
- Gary DeWitt Marshall, Instructor
- Janine McCabe ’98, Associate Professor
- Todd McNerney, Professor and Associate Dean
- JD Stallings, Technical Director
In addition, two original plays penned by College of Charleston juniors majoring in theatre were recognized by the festival: Rubies and Red String Olivia Maness, recipient of the Stelle Scholarship in Theatre Endowed Fund and the Emmett Robinson Memorial Scholarship in Theatre, and Overturned by Amber Dunton, recipient of the Marion and Wayland H. Cato Jr. Endowed Scholarship for SOTA.
Maness’ Rubies and Red String is the tense yet humorous story about married detectives Courtney and Kevin. While working to unravel the mystery behind a serial ring thief, the couple reaches a major bump in their relationship. Just like Courtney and Kevin’s case, this story is more than meets the eye. Although the central argument between the two is thrilling, Maness includes outrageous details and dialogue within the script that relieve tension and make the audience laugh.
“I had an absolute blast writing this piece,” Maness states. “My intention was to make something fun, and I did just that.”
Inspiration for the script came from an assignment in Maness’ playwriting class, which was told to make a 10-minute dialogue piece between two people. The first thing that came to Maness’ mind was an interrogation scene.
The time constraint proved to be challenging at first.
“I personally find it difficult to fit the story into 10 minutes,” says the playwright. “Sometimes it turns out being more like a 12-15–minute play, but the more I write, the more I learn the importance of editing.”
Not only was the time limit an obstacle, but also the sense of period accuracy: Rubies and Red String takes place in 2001, so Maness “needed a more thorough research stage.” She triumphantly overcame both of those obstacles as she made these characters come to life and allowed the viewer to dive into their story, if only for a short while.
Maness reminisces about the day she found out she was a regional finalist, remarking, “It was one of the most exciting emails I have ever got. It was the confidence boost I needed to dedicate myself to playwriting. Not to mention: Hearing the audience at the reading cackling at my writing – and working with the amazing actors – was surreal.”
While she is overjoyed with her win, Maness does not forget to give a lot of gratitude to those who helped her along the way – including her friends and teachers who read her drafts and kept her 10-minute plays 10 minutes.
“I’m very lucky to have very supportive people in my life, specifically my writing mentor, Michael Smallwood,” she says of the adjunct theatre lecturer and 2009 alumnus. “He encouraged me to submit to the Ten-Minute Play Festival. That took a lot of deliberation and a leap of faith in my writing for me to submit Red String.”
Her leap of faith clearly paid off, as Maness is now among the following College of Charleston students who received KCACTF awards:
- Bootsie Baldwin (The Importance of Being Earnest) – Region IV Heart of the Art in Design: Lighting Design and Technology
- Amber Dunton (Overturned) – Region IV 2024 Regional Finalist for the Gary Garrison 10-minute Playwriting Award
- Alex Jones (Dracula) – Region IV Lighting Design Honorable Mention
- Olivia Maness (Rubies and Red String) – Region IV 2024 Regional Finalist for the Gary Garrison 10-minute Playwriting Award
- Alexandria Prioleau (Home) – National Honors for Distinguished Stage Management
- Brandi Smalls (Home) – National Honors for Distinguished Performance
- Amelia Tebalt (Dracula) – National Winner for Sound Design Award
- Journey Townsend (Home) – National Honors for Distinguished Performance
- Chris Warzynski (Home) – SETC/David Weiss Regional 1st Place in Lighting Design
“I am proud that we are creating an environment of experiential learning that allows students like Olivia the opportunity to be recognized at the regional and national levels for the work they are doing,” says Janine McCabe ’98, associate professor of theatre and dance and artistic director for CofC Stages, noting that the College’s production of Home, by Samm-Art Williams and directed by faculty member Gary DeWitt Marshall, also scored several national honors:
- The Citizen Artist Award
- Distinguished Performance and Production Ensemble
- Distinguished Stage Management
- Facilitation of a Brave Rehearsal Space
“The consistent nominations and recognitions of our students, faculty, staff and productions by KCACTF are meaningful and noteworthy,” says McCabe. “We aim to continue producing high-level productions that support the learning and artistic development of these future professional artists.”
