Theater students act their way across state lines

Theater students may dream of becoming famous Broadway stars. Although going to a college theater festival may not be the same as having their names on a marquee, it's still one step closer to achieving their dreams. Three students attended the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival at Indiana University of Pennsylvania from Jan. 12 to 16, and one student had the opportunity to participate in "The Field" by Rachel Barclay at the festival.

"I got to be the reader, which I found out was the person that introduces the play, because it's a reading of it, so you couldn't act it out," Ashley Waterman, a junior English major, said. "I would read all the stage directions."

Although Waterman didn't have a large role, she enjoyed participating.

"It wasn't a big, giant 'Hey, you're acting' thing, but I still got to be a part of it," she said.

Students auditioned for plays on Wednesday and would perform in the short, 10-minute productions Saturday night.

"To have everything memorized, to have all your lines down, by Saturday night would be impossible, so they'd have concert stands there," Cameron DeOrdio, a junior English and journalism and mass communication double major, said. "People weren't doing much physical acting. It was mostly in the voice."

Becky Misenheimer, assistant professor of theater, was excited to have one of her students perform at the festival.

"They held auditions every two minutes from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.," she said. "They literally saw hundreds of students, and Ashley was still cast. Clearly, we're not doing too shabby."

Misenheimer thinks interest in the festival will help expand the theater program at Bonaventure.

"Two years ago, I went and took one student with me," she said. "This year we took three students."

Other than performing, the students saw multiple plays per day, put on by schools around the region.

"They invite shows from different schools, and they invite the best ones to come (to the festival)," Emily West, a freshman theater and journalism and mass communication double major, said. "Some of them were brand-new plays, so that was really neat."

One stand-out play was "Shot!," presented by Temple University, about gun violence in Philadelphia.

"The professor at that university had gone into the neighborhood and had interviewed people, and they had stuff directly from the interviews," West said. "It was a really powerful performance."

The group saw seven full-length shows in four days, all encompassing different genres and time periods, Misenheimer said.

"It was weird seeing a play about the Holocaust and then, two hours later, going to see a children's play," she said.

The workshops covered a wide range of topics, such as Shakespeare and commedia dell'Arte, an Italian style of acting that uses masks and physical comedy.

DeOrdio said the workshops helped him as an actor.

"I think I gained a more discerning eye when it comes to good theater," he said. "It made me want to become a better actor."

West also said the workshops helped her acting.

"They pointed out little, particular things you never really think of," she said. "One of the teachers told us 'don't go back to your old acting teacher and say 'I learned to do this, so I'm not going to do it any other way.'' It's more collecting skills and keeping them all together and bringing them all out when you need them."

Misenheimer said seeing other schools' theater programs affirmed the strength of Bonaventure's program.

"I wanted them to go so they could see more theater, and they got to see what other schools are doing," she said. "They're seeing something to aspire to, but they're also saying 'I can do that; we're learning those sorts of things; we can do that at our school.'"

Waterman said the festival made her appreciate Bonaventure's small program.

"Even though the bigger schools had more people representing them, it made me realize that I like our small program," she said.

kleinaj@sbu.edu