Twenty Whittier College students participated in the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, held at Mesa Community College in Mesa, Ariz. Whittier thespians performed a scene from The Good Person of Sichuan by Bertolt Brecht.
They were selected as one of ten scenes to perform at the festival.
In addition to the scene, five students and their partners took part in the Irene Ryan Scholarship Competition for an opportunity to win a $5,000 scholarship and the chance to compete with finalists from seven other regions at the Kennedy Center during the national festival in April.
Mimi RuthStiver ’17 received an Honorable Mention award for her dramaturgical work in A Dollhouse by Theresea Reback, directed by Katie Liddicoat. Jocelyn Lopez ’17 was awarded the first Arts Administration award and will be the first Poet ever to attend the national festival.
“Winning the Arts Administration fellowship is an honor and I am grateful to be representing Whittier College at the National Festival in Washington D.C.,” said Lopez. “Arts Administration is a relatively new field of study yet it’s an important role in the arts world. People’s knowledge of theatre is so limited to the artistic side such as acting, directing, and playwriting, that they don’t see the other people involved in cultivating that space for artists to hone their craft.”
Professor of Theatre Gil Gonzalez serves as the Chair of Region VIII for the festival, in which Whittier has been a participant in for the past 12 years.
