KCACTF Region 2

Festival 43 Regional Report 2010-2011

Juliet Wunsch, Chair

FESTIVAL DATES AND LOCATON: January 11th-15th, 2011 Towson University, MD Festival Host: Anthony Rosas Festival 2011 was held at Towson University, MD. Home of fabulous facilities and rich in student support, all events were very well received and we are excited at the possibilities for Festival 2013.

FESTIVAL SHAPE: Our first day of festival (registration, workshops, opening ceremonies, and area organizational meetings occurred off campus at the Sheraton Baltimore North. Ryan Pre-lims (Wed/Th) and all late night Fringe Events and Dance Parties were also in the Sheraton. The remainder of the events occurred on the Towson University Campus (W-Sat). Bussing facilitated the transportation between the two sites, and while on campus, the bulk of the activities could be contained in a single building (The Center For the Arts) with the exception of our Invited Shows at Stephens Hall. Towson University’s facilities and support staff enabled us to present 9 Invited Productions (6 receiving single performances in Stephens Hall, and 3 receiving 2 performances each in The Center for the Arts Mainstage Theatre). Stephen’s Hall was also able to provide us with our keynote speaker presentation (Avery Brooks) and our closing ceremonies. In addition to Production and large scale festival events, we were able to continue our focus on NPP invited workshops, Dramaturgy, Criticism, Design Tech and Management, Directing, Fringe Events, and Faculty Round Tables very comfortably. REGION 2 NUMERICAL INFORMATION:

Production Entries: **Major changes from 2010!! 227 Total: 57 Participating (Down from 69), 175 Associate (up from 140) Number of Participating Schools: 92 (Down from 159) KCACTF region II Registration report, Submitted by Vice Chair Elizabeth van den Berg

ATTENDEES: Students registered 966 (908 in 2010) Faculty registered 153 (136 in 2010) VIP’s 51 (30 in 2010) = = = TOTAL 1170

Student Grants: 20 hour student grant workers 34 10 hour student grant workers 15 TOTAL GRANTS AWARDED 49 (down from 71 last year, and 91 the year before) Number of Schools Participating in Festival: 87 (up from 39 previous year… location?) ** Major change from 2010!! FESTIVAL DETAILS Invited Productions -- 9

Fat Pig by Neil Labute, Produced by: Slippery Rock University Sorrows and Rejoicings by Athol Fugard, Produced by: West Chester University Elephants Graveyard by George Brant, Produced by: Towson University The Twenty-Fifth Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee by William Finn/Rachel Sheinkin/Rebecca Feldman

Produced by: Wilkes University Anon(ymous) by Naomi Iizuka, Produced by: Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania Noises Off by Michael Frayn, Produced by: Gallaudet University, **Student Directed Las Meninas by Lynn Nottage, Produced by: University of Maryland Baltimore County Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl, Produced by: Albright College A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare , Produced by: College of Staten Island Fringe and NPP Invitations (Workshops and Special Projects): Martial Arts by Yury Urnov, Produced by: Towson University ** NPP The Underpants by Steve Martin, Produced by: State University of New York at Oswego ** Student Directed The Whales by Bob Bartlett, Produced by: Catholic University **NPP

FESTIVAL EVENTS/WORKSHOPS:

National Playwriting Program (See Full Report Below)

11 Concert Readings: 6, 10-minutes, 2 one-acts and 3 full-lengths 34 full length script submissions 3 full length play readings 34 Cauble Short Play entries 2 one-acts invited to festival 75 Ten Minute Play entries 6 ten minute readings NPP Guest Respondents: John Moletress, Michael Dixon, Char Nelson, Larry Loebell and Jessica Lefkow Directors: Becky Prophet, Michel O’Steen, Julia Mathews, Janice Goldberg, Season Ellison, Gohn Gresh, Laura Smiley, Mark Wade, Jodi Gibson, Alan Kreizenbeck Region II readers for the script exchange: Adrienne Thompson, Cary Barney, Scott McKenzie, Scott Frank, Allyson Currin, Andrew Ade, David Skeele, Ruth Childs, John Moletress

Design, Technology & Management Events: See full report below Entries (Not identified as National vs. Regional) Costume 17, Scenic 13, Lighting 12, Props 3, Craft 4, Graphics 2, Make-up 4, Other 2, Stage Mgmt. 18, Sound 6 Total Entry’s 81 (up from 73) Response Team John Hill Region 2 (Costumes) Steve Shelly (lighting Design) Charlie Wittrech (Scenic) Jay Duckworth SPAM (Props) Taryn Friend (Stage Management) Christina Smith (Sound) Design Bash Tech Olympics Workshops: 30 7 Costume, 8 Overall Design, 5 Lighting, 6 Management, 1 Props, 2 Scenic, 2 Make-up Irene Ryan Auditions: See full report below 222 participated in the preliminary round, 4 preliminary round judges, 18 regional respondents 32 semi-finalists, 3 semi final judge/respondents 16 finalists, 3 judges Pre-lim Judges: Carol Arthur, Tom Miller, Emily Peters, Ansley Valentine Semi final judge/respondents – Matt Chapman, Michael Dove, BettyAnne Leesburg-Lange Finals judge/respondents – Nancy Krebs, Helen Pafumi, Susan Merson NAPAT Representative – Kate Robinson 2 Accompanists 2 Regional faculty running the Ryans – (Scott Mackenzie, Barb Blackledge and Michael Swanson) 3 Student Leaders – Courtney Jackson, Jenna Rossman and Meghan Hughes 20+student volunteers Dramaturgy: See full report below

6 Entries in the Student Dramaturgy Initiative (SDI) 9 Guerilla Dramaturgs Workshops: Diverse range of topics Guest Dramaturg, Michele Volansky O'Neil Critics Institute: See full report below

12 entries six scheduled sessions (totaling about 12 hours) Guest Critic, John Barry

SDC Fellowship: See full report below

6 Entries/ 4 Presented at Festival First Round Respondents: Lawrence Tatom and Richard Raether Interview/Portfolio Reviews: Richard Raether and Becky Prophet Final Round Respondents: Richard Raether and Becky Prophet

The Directing Institute: See full report below

10 Participants (9 scenes) 4 Faculty Mentors, 2 Respondents, 1 SM and 2 festival leadership Workshops: See full report below

Discrete workshop numbers below… overlap is NOT double calculated.

19 in Performance (down from 43, but overlap with Theatre Making) 31 in Design, Technical & Management 8 in Directing & Theatre Making 8 in Dramaturgy, Playwriting & Criticism (some overlap with Theatre Making) 9 in Education, Responding and KCACTF information

Special Events

Keynote Address: Avery Brooks Faculty Round Tables Fringe Events:

The Fringe Challenge Invited Scene Showcase, 3 Invited Fringe Productions VIP and Student Volunteer Coordination

18 from Towson University (Host school) 13 from West Chester University (Chair school) 12 McDaniel College 2 Morgan State 2 Prince George Community College 1 Bloomsburg University 1 Westminster College FESTIVAL AND REGIONAL PERSONNEL:

Towson University Team: Anthony Rosas, Festival Host Heather Sorensen, Events and Operations Manager Jay Herzog Mainstage Production Lighting Designer Brandon Ingle, Mainstage TD

Paul Shapanus, Stephens Hall TD/LD Student Area Leaders: TD, DTM, Fringe, Irene Ryans, NPP, Volunteers, Transportation, OCI and Dramaturgy Regional Team: Juliet Wunsch, Chair Elizabeth van den Berg, Vice Chair Scott Frank, Chair of NPP Allyson Currin, Vice Chair NPP Michael Allen, Chair DTM Rob Berry, Vice Chair DTM Becky Prophet, Directing Institute Grechen Wingerter, Directing (SSDC) Robyn Quick, Dramaturgy Ralph Leary, OCI Scott Mackenzie, Irene Ryans Barb Blackledge, Irene Ryans Michael Swanson, Irene Ryans Lawrence Tatom, Workshop Coordinator Leonard Kelly, Fringe Producer Steve Satta, Co-Fringe Producer Maggie Lally, Immediate Past Chair Associate Production Circuit Coordinators: Keith Hight, Trish Ralph and Joseph Fahey Student Festival Support:

Emily Hildenbrand, Volunteer and Student Event Coordinator, West Chester University FESTIVAL GUESTS:

NST: Gregg Henry, Tom Mitchell, Debra Otte, Brian Willis and Karen Anselm (NST rep) Avery Brooks, Keynote Speaker Festival Production Respondents: Dick Block, Ansley Valentine, Buck Jabaily, Char Nelson, Jessica Lefkow, John Moltress, Richard Raether

AREA REPORTS: (This is the Narrative Portion!!)

NPP Festival Report—February 2011, Submitted by Scott Frank, NPP Chair

NPP received ten-minute plays from seventy-five (75) different playwrights, one-act plays from thirty-four (34) different playwrights, and full-length plays from thirty-four (34) different playwrights. All the playwrights chosen for Festival 43 were graduate students. A concern among directors and respondents who answered a questionnaire attempting to assess Festival 43 was that NPP is the only part of festival catering to graduate students and that fact limits the ability of undergraduates to participate. (Please see the attached responses for a clearer understanding of issues raised by Festival 43)

At Festival concert reading of eleven plays were performed—six 10-minutes, two one-acts and three full-lengths. It is becoming clear that giving staged reading to full-length plays in such a short period of time is a Herculean task, which draws on too many resources and takes participants away from not only festival events but NPP events as well. Allyson Currin and I are talking about forgoing full-length plays next year, choosing instead four one-acts. We do, however, want to leave space open for a play like Bob Bartlett’s Whales, a special invite that allows an important writer the opportunity to share and continue to develop his or her work.

In an effort to deal with the undergraduate issue, we are in the processing of developing a relationship with the Stage Directors’ Institute to bring together undergraduate directors and undergraduate playwrights at Festival 44 to effect three benefits 1) to provide festival opportunities to undergraduate playwrights, 2) to provide young directors with the opportunity to work with the playwright to develop texts and production ideas, and 3) to connect young writers and directors who may have the inclination to work together later in their careers. Becky Prophet has agreed to work with Allyson Currin and me to create these opportunities next year. One trick will be to identify undergraduate writers—this may require an agreement in the spring to change the “KCACTF Submission Sheet,” which does not identify a playwright’s level in college or grad school. The other trick will be choosing the scripts, which may be difficult to identify because grad school playwrights’ work makes up the majority of the plays chosen by our Exchange Regions.

The assessment tool enabled us to identify issues that continue to plague and benefit NPP, which often has programming that conflicts with Festival events. Directors and writers rue the fact that they have little time for anything else besides NPP, but they also laud the kinds of work they get to do in those hours away from everything else Festival. This is a fact of NPP life, which no one has been able to find his way around.

We auditioned over 120 actors at Festival again this year; and along with SSDC and SDI provided opportunities for approximately half of those actors. Next Festival we plan to enable the SDI and SSDC directors pick actors before NPP directors pick their readers.

In order to raise the profile of NPP at Festival 44 even further, we plan to offer acting awards next year for the Best Cold Reading and the Best Performance in a Concert Reading. We also plan to offer The Kick Ass Stage Manager Award for NPP stage manager who outclasses the others.

Once again the tech rehearsal for NPP 10-minute Play performance before Closing Ceremonies was not on the Stephens schedule. This again generated a lot of confusion. We need to connect with Elizabeth vanden Berg to make sure we don’t suffer the same fate again next year. This is a problem that we’ve had since I have been associated with NPP.

We plan to offer standardize guidelines for respondents next year, along with individual schedules for each respondent made in consultation with the Regional Chair.

We would like to see the grad school playwrights join us in the faculty hospitality suite at the end of a given day—this would provide a place for them to convene and the ability to create a greater sense of camaraderie among them. Inviting them would also connect them to directors and faculty who may be interested in doing new work.

The sound quality of NPP venues need to be assessed at site visits. The recital hall was a lovely space visually but the acoustics were not very amenable to actors in concert readings.

NPP responded to nine (9) productions this fall, eight (8) associate and one (1) participating. The lack of participating NPP productions has the effect of limiting new plays that can be invited to Festival. I recommend that we continue to identify those new plays that should be seen at Festival and find way to help colleges and universities to get them there. The one participating play Elephant’s Graveyard was an invited production.

Three directors tapped for NPP—Eve Munson, David White, and Laura Smiley—all brought productions to Festival, which made for a mad scramble to find replacements before Festival 43began. Ms. Smiley was brave enough to attempt to do both since her show went up on Wednesday, but it is too much to ask of a director to do both. NPP needs to identify directors who are on a short list to take over in the event another director has to bow out. NPP wants to thank The Irene Ryan Team for parting with John Gresh who came in at the last minute and did a bang-up job in directing one of the short plays.

Barbara Burgess-Lefebvre, Dennis Schebetta, John Moletress, Amy Feinberg, Michael Dixon, and Jessica Lefkow were new respondents to NPP this year. We hope that they will be able to continue their fine work with us in the future.

The National Playwriting Program (NPP) Awards for Region 2

10-minute Plays Nowhere—Timothy Guillot, Catholic University of America Spaceship and Things that Look like Them—Molly Hagan, Ohio University John Cauble Short Play Award Secret Santa—Ira Gamerman, Ohio University David Mark Cohen National Playwriting Award Whales—Bob Bartlett, Catholic University of America The Book of Jo B. Jobey—Richard Wesp, Niagara County Community College KCACTF DESIGN TECHNOLOGY & MANAGEMENT, Sumbitted by Michael Allen

Entries Costume 17 Scenic 13 Lighting 12 Props 3 Craft 4 Graphics 2 Make-up 4 Other 2 Stage Mgmt. 18 Sound 6 _______________________ Total Entry’s 81

Workshops: 31

Break Down of Workshops by Area

Costume Design 7 Overall Design 8 Lighting 5 Management 6 Props 1 Scenic 2 Make up 2

Response Team John Hill Region 2 (Costumes) Steve Shelly (lighting Design) Charlie Wittrech (Scenic) Jay Duckworth SPAM (Props) Taryn Friend (Stage Management) Christina Smith (Sound)

Key Points for Narrative

• Increase in Student Participation o Rise in Exhibit entry’s o Pick up on non produced student class design project encourage more o Need to add more prop workshops to stimulate interest in the field o No response to the New Student Lead Workshop initiative try to raise interest o Developing new collaborations with outside companies, this was a very successful first effort

Conversations were had at the festival and the plans to continue cultivating these lead it will definitely pay off in the years to come.

Rosebrand 4Wall Lighting Company

o It is critical that workshops be brought into the festival grid much earlier than this year; late entries were a problem and caused a lot of unnecessary conflict.

o This was the first year we have had Stage Management in a separate room from the design exhibit, it worked very well, as the entries continue to expand we may want to consider continuing the separate exhibit for Stage and any Management exhibit.

o We reinstated the Faculty Design Exhibit this year o We added a new rubric for responders reviewing the design entries . o The design exhibit information board was very valuable this year helping to keep the students informed

with the various changes that were rapidly taking place with the workshops as well as location. o Although the award ceremony added back to the final award ceremony has been successful in

highlighting the DTM program. It may be adding more time to the final ceremony, this needs to be discussed with the region chair and modified accordingly. It may be necessary to consider going back the previous method.

IREN RYAN REPORT, submitted by Scott Mackenzie and Barb Blackledge

The Numbers:

238 Registered by extended deadline of December 20th By opening ceremonies, a total of 265 had registered (including walk ins who did not realize they had to register on-line). 16 pre-registered students had dropped, and some had not checked in nor had they withdrawn, leaving us expecting about 230-235 on audition day. In the end, based on the number of check-in photos taken on prelim audition day: 222 nominees actually auditioned.

Four preliminary round Non-Regional or In-Region professional Judges

Carol Arthur, Studio Theatre Acting Conservatory, DC Tom Miller, Actors Equity Association, NY Emily Peters, National Theatre Institute, The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, CT Ansley Valentine, Co-Chair, KCACTF Region III; Director of Theatre, Northern Michigan University

32 semi finalists representing 21 Schools Three Non-Regional or In-Region semi-final Judges

Matt Chapman, Dell’Arte International, CA and Artistic Director, Under the Table, NY Michael Dove, Artistic Director, Forum Theatre, MD BettyAnne Leesburg-Lange, past president, the Voice and Speech Trainers Association (VASTA), MD

16 Finalists representing 12 Schools Three Non-Regional or In-Region final Judges

Nancy Krebs, Lessac Master Teacher, The Voiceworks Studio, MD Helen Pafumi, Artistic Director, The Hub Theatre, VA Susan Merson, New York Arts Summer Theatre Conservatory Program

Narrative: This year the Irene Ryans ran extremely smoothly thanks to successful communication between the three area coordinators. Additionally, outstanding efforts of the three primary student volunteers helped to make each registration and each round flow with very few hiccups. Towson University should be commended for choosing highly motivated and dedicated students to each area.

Prior to the festival the duties were divided as follows: Scott Mackenzie – scheduling, clearing rights, communicating with nominees prior to the festival Barb Blackledge – securing first round respondents and wrangling the respondents at festival Michael Swanson – securing judges and wrangling them during the festival This division of labor worked very well, allowing each coordinator to focus on his or her area, though it may be possible to combine the judge and respondent duties. Only the prelim day would require a double work load. Pre-festival communication was much more effective this year. Unlike last year, the co-coordinators were apprised of numbers and schedule well before the festival and each had a copy of the Master spreadsheet that listed all the nominees.

The on-line registration worked generally well, though there were a couple problems with students who claimed to have registered, but whose registrations never made it to the Ryan Registration inbox. In some cases, the student probably assumed that registering for the festival also registered him or her for Ryans. On the other hand, based on anecdotal evidence, at least four students who assured me that they had registered for Ryans as well as the festival told me that they had registered on a Mac computer, while none in the same situation claimed to have registered on a PC. This may require some further investigation and a patch to the webpage if it a Mac conflict is found. 259 Registrations did come to the inbox without a problem. We should change the form slightly so that an answer is required for how rights were cleared or the form is rejected and the student is told to answer the skipped question.

Registration was very successful. Students were moved through the stations in minimal time. Rights issues were addressed and the new rule allowing students to audition as long as national finalists could prove rights within a week of the festival took a lot of pressure off students who still had some issues that we couldn’t clear up at the table.

(I would suggest a real RSVP from all the respondents and preliminary judges and coordination with the responses with setting up for the Respondents’ Dinner. We didn’t have enough seats this year – three seats short – with one respondent squeezed on the corner of the table, another sitting at the coffee table next to the table – and Scott not getting a seat with us at all.)

The preliminary round went pretty smoothly, though the judges recommended that we reduce from 15 auditions per hour to 14 to allow a bit more break time. We kept the same hourly schedule as last year because those judges had no problem with it when asked. If we continue to use two rooms, losing an audition per hour will extend the day perhaps more than would be advisable. Extending the auditions into a second day, would probably raise too many conflicts with other programs such as NPP SCC SDI, the O’Neill Critics Institute and of course invited productions.

As it was this year, I was able to coordinate with the other area heads on the evening of prelims and deconflict the semi-final schedule almost completely. A possible solution to the time crunch may be to go up to three rooms. This, of course would mean two more preliminary round judges and all the attendant expenses and some loss in the consistency of judging, but would make scheduling late additions much easier and eliminate the threat of a late evening audition session. We could go back to in-region judges to reduce expenses, but that would re-raise the conflict of interest issues that moved us toward non-regional judges. In either case, I think this is an issue we need to visit during the May/June regional planning meeting.

(Scott and Michael, As I was the one who was very aware of how long the judges and respondents were working without any real break but the lunch break (as I shifted the respondents each hour and checked on the judges), may I make a couple of suggestions towards addressing this next year.

1. If we can do a variation of what we did for lunch this year (and two years ago in Philly), use a private room (ideally the hospitatlity suite -- if Ryans are in the primary host hotel!) for a lunch ordered and brought in by one of our student helpers. Then you only need an hour for lunch. This gives us a half hour to put into breaks for the judges at least in the afternoon – and also mid-morning if you take my next suggestion. This could still give us eight (the number we used this year) to nine hour slots for auditioning – and still finishing at the same time we did this year – no later than 7 PM. If indeed, having four judges instead of six is more efficient in terms of selecting the semi-final 32 (as it has been the last two years), we should have a list easily by the late night “leadership meeting” and be able to coordinate with the NPP and Directing Program area heads in terms of actor overlap, as Scott did so well this year.)

2. If we schedule four one-hour audition slots in the morning (instead of the three for this year) with lunch from 1-2 PM, we could schedule a fifteen minute break after the second session in the morning – and another fifteen minute break after the second or third in the afternoon (depending upon how many we would need). Or we could literally build a five minute break into the end of each hour – which at least allows for a full restroom break – which we had to take away from audition times to make possible this year.)

Scheduling the semis went very smoothly. After checking with the other area coordinators, I moved NPP, SDI etc. participants to times that did not conflict, then randomized the remainder using Microsoft Excel and informed the students of their audition slots. This process eliminated the time spent digging around in the fishbowl drawing times and re-drawing when a conflict arose. This saved time was then turned back to the semi-finalists to allow them to become more familiar with the space. The semi-performance did not run quite as smoothly. The judges, who wanted to do the best job possible, used much more than the allotted between scene time to make notes and the round went on almost an hour longer than scheduled. This, in turn, crunched the deliberation time and made the judges late for the response. In the response, again in an effort to be as helpful as possible, the judges consistently ran over their allotted time in each of their individual responses, causing the finalist announcement to be delayed for over half an hour. In future years, we need to remember to gently but firmly make the judges aware of the time issues and force them as much as possible to stick to the schedule.

(Scott and Michael, we might want to suggest what the limit to that time frame might be. This year, the semis judges took an average of seven minutes to deliberate for the first group and – maybe with a nudge from Michael in the break – took an average of five to six minutes to deliberate for the second group. Either option is way too long. To encourage limiting the time in the feedback – if the judges could have even less time for notes, they would only have so much feedback to give – and largely cover the major issues of the audition – and not a lot of the details. I would suggest that we tell the judges at both the semi and final levels that they are encouraged to make their notes during the audition as much as possible – with a minute after it, to finalize any thoughts (or whatever Scott told the final level judges this year!).

Finals scheduling went as smoothly as semis and, after the lesson of the previous day, we encouraged the judges to keep note taking to the minimum that they would need to give good advice to nominees during the response. The judges listened and the final round stayed right on schedule, the deliberations were spirited, but completed right on time and the response actually ended a few minutes early.

One note on a Ryan stage manager: This year our DTM student stage manager was from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He had great intentions of doing all he could to help, but by the time he made it over to work with us, we already had a pretty effective system in place and didn’t quite know how to use him or fit him into the chain of command, which didn’t allow him to show to his best in the DTM stage management competition. One suggestion for the future is that if a student from a host school is also planning to participate in the stage management event, he or she be assigned to the Ryans well in advance of the festival and function as our liaison and lead student assistant from the host school. (Good idea, Scott! The other side of the issue is the fact that lighting wasn’t an option this year – something other Ryan stage managers have been able to do – actually working at some level of SM control panel. As KCACTF will be at IUP next year, we need to at least touch base with Scott as to the location of Ryans last year. If they were at the Zink Dance Studio, there is a lighting board there in a location for the SM to control it. If we could get Ryan on board again – to be a part of the planning process, he certainly would have the perspective to give us advice!)

Respectfully Submitted Scott A. Mackenzie (with updates from Barb Blackledge) Region II, Irene Ryan Coordinator

Directing Institute and SDC, Becky Prophet (DI) and Grechen Wingerter (SDC)

Report From the Directing Institute Becky Prophet , Student Directing Institute, Production Development Project, Shadow Program, Directing Workshops

I. The Directing Institute: A. There were ten students who completed the Directing Institute at the festival, this year. This number is

just about ideal, as far as I am concerned. It is enough to make for lively workshops, discussions, and schedules. At the same time all of the scenes can be performed and receive reasonable responses in a good amount of time. I consider 8-12, the right number. My experience continues to suggest this is accurate. The directors were very grateful to be included in the auditions for NPP and by the end were thrilled with the options they had. One student director did step over the line, just a bit in terms of her reactions when she heard the name of someone she wanted to cast. I hope none of the NPP people took offense. I did calm her down and then, later, give her a rather stern warning. All Institute directors were very successful in their casting choices.

B. The ten scenes suggest that there were also twenty actors. In addition there were four faculty mentors, two respondents, 1 stage manager, and two festival leadership working to make this whole Institute work. In other words, approximately forty people attending the festival found involvement through this opportunity. The highest praise must go to Emily Jewett of Towson, who as our volunteer and liaison was so capable, dependable and efficient that I want to clone her. Also intensely high praise goes to Andrew Esposito from West Chester who was the most available and pleasant stage manager.

C. Our audience, for the scenes, numbered approximately 100. This is a little down in terms of the experience in the last two years. However, I will not be sad. I used to think that the the audience will always number about five or six times the total number of actors and directors. The difference this time may have been publicity.

D. We held three workshops in the mornings. Taught by Becky Prophet, Richard Wolf-Spencer, and Grechen Wingerter, these were all well attended with attentive participants. The time was right. Feedback shows that the level of difficulty of the workshops might have been just a tad low, but still, no one got up and left. I will try to make adjustments for that next year.

E. In addition to the Directing Institute and the workshops, we introduced two other programs. 1.) The Production Development Project is a remake of the Collaboration Tank. It’s best success is dependent on recruiting people in DTM as well as the Directing Institute. For this fledgling event, we ended up with two people who actually were from the same school. They seemed to really enjoy the brain work and the discussion to invent a production for Romeo and Juliet. I hope to continue this next year to see if the

program grows and also expands to DTM. 2.) The shadow program: THREE students told me that they were interested in shadowing. It was very easy to match them with directors---almost every NPP director told me that he or she was willing to have a shadow. I have not heard back from the directors or the students with their remarks about the project.

F. We were very well and cheerfully supported by three student volunteers, one stage manager, and the staff of the Towson theatre department

G. Our needs: 1. a dedicated space (that won’t interfere with productions) for workshops and rehearsals, throughout

the week 2. Meeting space—the theatre worked well for this 3. Rehearsal furniture—cubes, a table, 2-3 chairs 4. one stage manager for every six scenes (therefore, one or two) 5. connection with NPP for auditions 6. budget to contribute to the NPP auditions pizza-while-casting meal 7. access to word processing and printing for fliers, programs, notes, and so on, including office space 8. faculty mentors for the students—one per director is ideal 9. a performance space that can accommodate an audience of 100-180 (This could be an empty room,

with chairs set in. We use no tech support) 10. a performance space to which the directors could have access for at least three hours each, before

public presentation of scenes 11. Space and time for respondents to the scenes 12. Respondents, approximately three in number 13. Workshops AND a means of clearance for those workshops. 14. Support for one or two outside respondents who could and would do double duty for SDC (see

below) and DI 15. Continued connection and collaboration with SDC.

Many thanks, everyone. Please add, edit or comment on any of this.

SDC Report: Submitted by Grechen Wingerter

Overview:

Festival LVIII was another successful year in regards to SDC. Once again I had six initial candidates, but unfortunately, due to a variety of circumstances ended up with only four by festival time. While the numbers were small, I do believe the quality of the work was overall much stronger than last year. All four of the candidates were very strong and I was impressed with everyone’s commitment to the process and the work throughout the week. Of the five possible scene choices, three were selected by the candidates. We had two How I Learned to Drive scenes, one Proof, and one Angels in America: Perestroika. Each scene ranged from having three to five actors, so in total we had fifteen actors. The preliminary round of scene presentations was closed to the public, but for the final round our audience numbered approximately 75. Final attendance numbers were a down a bit from last year, due mostly, I think, because of the final scene presentations going up against Noises Off as well as the NPP readings.

There were very few issues or conflicts this year with Irene Ryans or NPP. We were able to work around everyone’s needs. Specials thanks should be extended to Scott Mackenzie and Scott Frank for being flexible with the students who were involved in both areas. Thanks, guys! One thing I may want to consider for next year is how minimize the overlap on the final presentation day when everything is happening at once.

Student Volunteers

All the volunteers were very enthusiastic and reliable especially Emily Jewett from Towson. Having a stage manager was also helpful and we had a fantastic one in Andrew Esposito from West Chester this year. I know I was better prepared with how to best utilize their help with SDC this year so that their time was best served and that they were able to enjoy

their experience with SDC and the Festival as a whole. I think we were quite successful in this area. Everything ran smoothly, everyone was easy to communicate with, and things were done on time – even potential problems were anticipated and therefore minimized.

Participant Feedback

In an effort to get feedback from the candidates, I did ask them to fill out an evaluation form at the end of the week I received forms back from 3 of the 4 participants and the majority of that feedback was positive. I’ve attached he comments in a separate document.

Application Process

The application process was smoother this time around. Going to an all online format aided in that process. It was also nice to have the one page online application form that served as an excellent cross-reference for me. I would still love to double the number of applicants – including graduate students -- for next year and I wonder if the lengthy application procedure may continuing to keep people away – particularly grad students who may already be overburdened with work at their home campus and may not want to take on one more project. I think another element that may be holding more undergraduates back is the requirement to have a directed a fully-mounted production. Most of the other regions do not have this requirement for the SDC program. I mentioned it briefly to Gregg Henry in passing at the Festival and he said to go ahead and do away that one. So for next year that will be eliminated.

Workshops

Workshops were well attended overall and I was pleased to see more people than just our SDC and DI students participate. I’m hoping that will help boost our numbers for both directing programs for next year. The workshops were a great way to connect with the students each morning and pass on any needed information. Once again I am thinking about the possibility of second session of workshops – perhaps in the afternoons – just for the SDC candidates for next year. These might be more of a seminar type workshop where the directors can discuss common issues or trends in directing, or even just focusing on specific elements of directing such as script analysis. A couple of the workshops this year were geared more for beginning directors and they expressed interest in something a little more hands on and involved.

Respondents/Judges/Mentors

Richard Raether and Lars Tatom were our respondents. Richard, along with Becky Prophet served as judges for the final selection. The directors really enjoyed having the opportunity to talk with and get feedback from Richard. He gave very specific and insightful feedback to each student and they were all receptive to what he had to say. His easy-going – yet professional manner – put the students at ease. Richard was also very flexible and generous with his time throughout the week. I was thrilled to be able bring him to the Festival and have the opportunity to work with him on a new professional level. I was also glad to be able to utilize Lars Tatom as a resource this year. Last year we weren’t able to coordinate our schedules so I was thrilled when he confirmed he was able to be a first round respondent.

Lars and Richard worked in tandem for the preliminary round. Becky was present for the first round, but did not respond. For the final Round, Richard and Becky responded together. Richard and Becky were also present for the interview process, but Lars was not. I think for next year I’d like to try to have the same respondents all the way through – from preliminary round to interview to final round.

One change we made to the format of the program was to have the interview session immediately after the preliminary round. It seemed to work well. I liked being able to talk with the directors before their final presentations as opposed to afterwards. It allowed me to hear a bit about their approaches to the scenes and directing in general, and then be able to have time to digest what we talked about and then see their work in the final scene before having to making a decision

about who would receive the fellowship. It may be that if we have more participants next year we may not be able to continue with that format, since we may have to narrow down the field in order to have time for everything.

Having the respondents serve as judges also worked well. I realize other regions may have separate people for each role, but I think this way enables us to “kill two birds with one stone” so to speak, and still provide a fair assessment of the work of each director – especially since none of our respondents had any direct connection to any of the directors. Next year I’d like to consider the possibly of using one of the other SDC coordinators from another region as a respondent/judge as well as an outside person and have both of those people respond to both rounds, conduct the interviews and help decide the SDC Fellowship recipient. That way there can be more continuity to the responses and feedback and both of the respondents/judges can get a better sense of the growth of the students work from one round to the next. My other hope with this idea is to ease much of the burden for Becky of having to focus on both DI and SDC – especially with her development of the fledging programs she started this year.

Last year’s SDC candidates expressed the wish for more mentorship throughout the process at Festival. They already had mentors/advisers from their home schools, but were looking for more of that outside eye. I managed to fulfill this role a bit more this year by attending portions of their rehearsals on their scenes and then providing feedback to them. This allowed me to see their work as a director, as well as get to know each one bit better. As the programs grows, it may be more difficult for me get to everyone’s rehearsal and this may not be the best plan, but I’m liking it for now. Despite the SDC faction being a “competition”, I believe there is still room for guidance. In an ideal world it would be fantastic to pair outside mentors with the candidates and possibly ahead of time, but with so many unknowns prior to Festival, it may not be feasible.

One new thing we did try this year was utilizing last year’s SDC Fellowship recipient, Nick Hrutkay, as a mentor for one of the DI participants. Nick really enjoyed the process and so the student he was mentoring. By having a peer mentor – one with more directing experience – he felt a little less intimidated. It may not be something that happens every year, but should be considered again if at all possible.

SDC/DI Collaboration

Once again the collaboration/connection between SDC and DI was very beneficial. Having Becky’s guidance and support has been crucial to the success of the directing wing of the Festival. I hope to see this collaboration continue and grow each year – especially as we may get more SDC applicants who had been DI participants. One change for me personally this year was that I sensed SDC was able to operate more independently from DI. I felt much more confident making decisions, coordinating schedules, and organizing events. I didn’t feel I had to lean on Becky so much for every little thing. I still think bringing both groups together for the workshops is a great idea and I’d like to continue that tradition. I like to expand on it a bit more and try to organize an informal talk session or two between the DI or SDC participant so the students can talk to each other about directing, their scenes, and anything else that may be pertinent. This element may be particularly helpful if there are students involved in the programs who have previously participated in either SDC or DI.

Space

Once again, having a dedicated space for Directing was fantastic. It was wonderful to be able arrange to meet with the SDC Candidates in one environment that became a home base for us throughout the week. It was also quite helpful for them to be able have two rehearsal spaces so that rehearsal times could be overlapped without worrying about everyone being able get enough time in the space. When we return to IUP I hope we are able to have the same spaces dedicated to us as we did for the 2010 festival.

Getting the Word Out

I’m still hopeful we can increase our number for next year. Hopefully the changes to the application requirements will help with achieve that goal. I’d still like to find a way to reach more people with the SDC information. The Regional Newsletter is one great method. Now that I know a few more people in the region, I can also send information directly to them. I’ll try to brainstorm a few more ideas to generate more buzz about SDC.

Summary

Ultimately, even with few participants, I believe this year’s festival to be a success for SDC. We had fantastic respondents, wonderful student volunteers, and the overall feedback from the participants was positive. I feel more confident in my abilities to oversee the program as it grows, and I am eager to spread the word and get students excited about directing and the SDC Fellowship. I am already looking forward to next year and all the possibilities.

O’Neill Critics Institute Ralph Leary, Coordinator of OCI, KCACTF, Region II

At the 2011 Region II festival, OCI consisted of six scheduled sessions, totaling about 12 hours, in which the guest critic worked with those students who chose to participate in OCI. Student critics wrote a number of pieces during the four days of OCI, including two 500-word reviews, one 800-word double review, and the final review that each critic felt reflected his or her best work. In all cases, this final review was at least in part a revision of a previous review. The guest critic read all of these final submitted entries and selected a first place winner and an alternate. The winner was invited to the Kennedy Center for the national KCACTF Festival.

Guest Critic John Barry, a critic for the Baltimore City Paper, who also writes freelance for other periodicals and teaches writing and Literature at the Maryland Institute College of the Arts, served as the guest critic for the 2011 KCACTF Region II Festival. This was the first time John Barry has worked for us as a critic, but as has been the case with all of our recent critics, he did a fine job and approached the tasks with knowledge, and enthusiasm. The approach Region II has taken in recent years in the selection of critics is 1) to use local talent when we can, and 2) use different critics every couple of years or so. This approach is designed to try to save the region transportation and housingcosts and expose our students to different approaches and to different strengths with each critic. Mr. Barry is a local critic who is knowledgeable about both the local Baltimore theater scene and professional theater in other venues. Moreover, he has experience as a teacher which is an asset given the amount to teaching that occurs at OCI during the festival. Finally, his experience in working in electronic journalism enables him to apprise students of recent developments in the field of theater criticism. As more and more papers are devoting less ink to theater criticism, more and more criticism is moving to electronic sites and is being done by freelancers. John was able to give the students insights into the evolving nature of the field.

One of the strengths of John’s instruction was his ability to lead discussions about the plays. After seeing the invited productions, John and the students engaged in animated and open discussions that encouraged and allowed all of the students to express their viewpoints and participate. Indeed, this discussion was frequently so engaging that there was less time devoted to the discussion of the reviews than has been the practice in the past. When John and I discuss the OCI sessions in the future, I may suggest that he shift the classroom emphasis a bit. If this year’s discussion was 60% discussion of the shows and 40% discussion of the writing, I would encourage him in the future to reverse these emphases and make discussion of the writing 60% and the analysis of the shows 40%. My rationale for this is that most of these students have ample experience talking about and arguing about the plays they have seen. They generally have less experience in learning how to write theater criticism, a genre that is not frequently taught in colleges.

This is not to say that analysis of the writing did not occur. It did. And, as always seems to happen in OCI, the students were most generous to each other in their criticisms and encouragement. The discussions built a clear sense of community. In addition, John devoted a great deal of time outside of the class to read and comment on all of the work the students did. The students received a great deal of personal feedback from our guest critic. It is also clear from looking at the final drafts that all of the students showed improvement in their writing from their first attempts to their final review. While I think they may have profited from more discussion of the particular conventions of the theater review as a unique type of writing, it is clear that they all learned much through John Barry’s instruction.

Mr. Barry also read all of the final submissions and selected the winner and the alternate. Discussions with students outside of the sessions revealed that they all again felt they had a valuable learning experience and were very pleased with what Mr. Barry did with OCI.

We have been very lucky in Region II to find critics who are willing to give up a week of their time to work with our student critics. We have been even more fortunate that the critics we have selected have been able to deliver such a strong, student-centered experience. Since the festival next year is not likely to be in Baltimore, we may need to look else where for our critic. However, we should keep My. Barry in mind if and when we do return to Baltimore and/or if the festival is held in an area where there is not a local critic.

Student Participants Unlike many of the other KCACTF Region II Festival activities, students who participate in OCI do not need to be invited or to “pre-qualify.” Any student who wants to participate in OCI is invited to do so. This year we had 12 students who actively participated by attending most of the sessions and submitting a final review. This is the same size as last year, and is a good number. Given the seminar nature of OCI, we should try to avoid exceeding 15 students. We continue to solicit pre-registrations and this has been helpful for planning, even if it is not perfect. We had 13 students register before the festival. Of these, two students apparently did not come to the festival at all and a third quit coming after the first session. However, two students registered on-site. One challenge that OCI is beginning to have more frequently is a conflict with the Irene Ryan competition. Three of our participants were not able to either attend the first session or attend the first invited production. Two current Irene Ryan practices impact OCI: 1) using fewer judges for the Irene Ryan prelim round and having the prelim round continue throughout the first day of the festival and 2) the assigning of Ryan audition times before the students come to the festival. This creates conflicts with our OCI students. We were able to work through these. In then future, we may try to work more carefully with the Irene Ryan coordinator to schedule students who have pre-registered for OCI so as to reduce conflicts. However, if there are conflicts, the size and nature of OCI will allow us to adjust for these conflicts as we did this year. On the positive side, giving the names of OCI participants to the Irene Ryan coordinators, did enable them to schedule the Ryan semi-finals to reduce the conlicts.

Contact information for the students who registered and participated is located in the addendum at the end of this report.

OCI Sessions The sessions for OCI at the 2010 Region II Festival were quite similar to those of past festivals. Since the students self-select OCI, they are not required to submit any written reviews ahead of time. This means that the first day’s session usually consists primarily of introductions and discussion of what a critic does. However, as we have done in the past, we contacted those students who pre-registered and Mr. Barry was able to send them a number of reviews to read before our first session. This is a benefit of pre-registration as it enables students to see many examples of the sort of writing they will be doing. We should continue to provide the Guest Critic with opportunities to contact the pre-registered critics to get information from them and provide them with information whenever possible. The sessions themselves, as noted earlier, consisted of extensive discussions of the invited productions we saw and the reviews the students wrote. It can become, when the students examine each others’ writing, very much like a workshop.

Critical to the success of OCI is the opportunity for the students to attend invited productions, since their reviews of these plays provide the basis not only for their final submission but also for the work that is discussed in OCI sessions. An

initial schedule of the sessions is established with the recognition that it can be modified slightly. Since OCI is pretty self-contained, we can make changes easily. This said, the festival schedule did create some problems, which I will discuss in the “Problems” section. Given the number of productions invited, though, such conflicts may be inevitable.

On the positive side, the schedule of the invited productions at the festival this year benefitted the critics. Since the final review is most likely going to be on a play they see on the first two full days of the festival, having “meatier” and more challenging plays on those days gives the critics more to think, talk, and write about. Such was the case this year. While I understand that there are many factors in the scheduling of the invited productions, this years schedule led to some exciting discussion and writing.

OCI Winners The winner of the OCI award was Andrew Vitalo of Penn State University—Berks Campus. Tyler Crumrine of Grove City College was the alternate. Contact information for them is located in the addendum at the end of this report.

IUP and Worker Support OCI cannot run smoothly without the support of the host school. Since much of the written material the guest critic and students work with is generated while they are at the festival, OCI requires a great deal of printing and photocopying. This year, Elisabeth Jonas of Towson was assigned as our assistant. As I will note in the “Problems” section, this assignment did create some challenges which were solved through the work of another Towson volunteer, Samantha Emerson. Towson is to be commended for allowing printing and copying to be done in departmental offices; these tasks appear to have been done seamlessly. Wireless access was also successful. Towson generously allowed people to create guest wireless accounts which the students could easily use. In addition, the two festival hotels also had free wireless access, so the students could readily send their reviews electronically to the critic, our student worker, and me. Knowing ahead of time what the school and hotels have available in terms of technology proved very helpful. In addition, Heather Sorensen and all of the House Managers from Towson were extraordinarily helpful in handling the tickets and seating for the shows we had selected, so that the student critics could see the assigned productions.

Problems As the Region II Festival continues to grow and expand its offerings, it is inevitable that there will be problems and conflicts. Not surprisingly, there were some problems that impacted OCI this year. Indeed, there seemed to be more challenges this year than in the past. It may have just been our turn. It must be noted, however, that we were able to work around or through the problems so that the students had a valuable experience. Still, these should be acknowledged.

1) Impact of the Irene Ryan schedule. In the past, the Irene Ryan preliminary round was finished or mostly finished in the morning of the first day after registration. The change in the Ryan schedule so that most of the first day was used meant that one of our participants was unable to attend a production, one could attend neither a production nor our first session, and third had to leave the OCI session early to go perform. All, I believe, were partners. They were all able to become active participants, but we may need to monitor this to see if it has a future impact. Since it appears that the Irene Ryan preliminary round will continue to be an all-day affair, we may want to share the names of pre-registered critics, so that we can try to reduce conflicts.

2) Impact of a time of show problem. The times of the small theater shows (10 AM and 3:30 PM) along with the time of the afternoon large theater show (12:30 PM) meant that it was impossible to see both daytime shows AND have our customary morning and afternoon sessions. The primary problem is moving the second small theater show to a 3:30 curtain. (In the past, it has been later and the noontime large theater show has had an earlier curtain.) I understand these changes have been done to accommodate meals and the evening show. The schedule, however, created two problems. It meant that at least one of the daytime shows could not be viewed and it also reduced the contact time the guest critic had with then students. With the compressed time schedule, the critic was less unable to discuss some elements of the craft. This may simply be a problem of the success we have had in bringing shows to the festival, but it is a challenge to OCI.

3) Student worker problem. A Towson student worker was assigned to OCI before the selection meeting. At the meeting, however, two Towson productions (one a Fringe production) were invited to the festival. Since the student worker was TD for both shows, this created some significant conflicts. She was unable to help with registration, and she could not be accessible to do all of the printing and copying. Luckily, the Dramaturgy student worker was able to step in to do some of the printing and copying. Ultimately, this solved what could have been a significant problem. In the future, however, student volunteers should be instructed to inform the area heads of conflicts immediately and the host school volunteer coordinators should be mindful of potential conflicts if a show from the host school is selected for the festival.

4) The OCI room problem. In the past, OCI is assigned a room that we have exclusive access to throughout the festival. This allows critics to leave belongings in a locked room when they go to see a show in the same building, and it allows OCI to easily make schedule changes if we decide to see a different production from that originally decided upon. Because of late changes to the festival schedule, the “open” times of the OCI room were scheduled with other workshops. This meant we could not readily change our schedule nor could students leave materials in the room. We also had to reconfigure the room from a seminar-style to lecture –style classroom with each change. While we were again able to work through this problem, it is preferable if we can have exclusive use of a room and have access to a key or a student worker who can always be available to lock and unlock the room.

5) Posting of reviews problem. According to the suggested guidelines of OCI nationally, we should post reviews. While one of our previous Guest Critics adamantly opposes this, the main reason we have not done this is that we have not been able to find a readily accessible venue to do this. Last year’s Guest critic, Wendy Rosenfield, posted reviews on her blog. That worked. This year we did not find a solution to this problem.

6) Our success problem. It appeared for a while this year that we might have more than 15 students sign up. Fifteen should be the cap for OCI, since it is conducted as a seminar/writers’ workshop. We did not have 15, but 12 is a real challenge in terms of the time the guest critic devotes to all of them and the time needed to make the final evaluations. This is, of course, a good problem to have. Still, I would like to be able to cap registration to 15 in necessary on a first-come, first-admitted basis. This may not become an issue—OCI participation often fluctuates. Still, this too should be monitored.

Challenges and Directions The biggest challenge OCI in Region II has faced for a number of years is the fluctuation in the level of participation. Some years, our numbers are low. Two years ago in Philadelphia, we had only about 7-8. These past two years, we approached 15. I believe we should be willing to cap it at 15, should the popularity continue. The approach that our guest critics have consistently taken has been to make this into a seminar/writers’ workshop. A large class makes this impossible. The challenge will be to try to maintain participation in the 10-15 range. With these numbers, our student critics can still receive individual attention, and the guest critic has a manageable number of final reviews to evaluate for the awards.

That said, we do face the challenge of maintaining the participant numbers we have had this year. We need to continue efforts in a number of directions. First, we need to maintain a strong profile in the region by continuing to ask respondents to productions to tell the faculty and students about OCI and to direct them to the website. Also, we have benefitted from the addition of schools new to our region. We need to continue to reach out to these schools so they can participate in OCI in our region. We can also encourage theater faculty to inform colleagues in English and Journalism departments who may have good OCI candidates, but don’t know about it. Second, we need to encourage students to sign up on-line. While I don’t think it should a requirement, it does encourage students to become committed to OCI from the outset, it helps with planning, and it provides the OCI coordinator with the opportunity to pass on important information to them before the festival begins. Third, I think the updated website and the newsletter provide valuable vehicles to get the word out on OCI. It reminds people that there is something else for interested Theater students other than the productions, design, and the Ryans. Finally, this year I wrote emails after the festival to the chairs of the Theater Departments thanking them for doing whatever they could to send their students to OCI. It is valuable, I think, to make them aware of their students’ work and participation. A related challenge is that some students who register for OCI come to the festival to do other things. I suspect the largest individual student group consists of Irene Ryan participants. As noted above, the change in the Ryan schedule/structure

did have an impact on OCI. Even with the changes, students who do not advance to the semi or final rounds can participate in OCI and Ryans with little conflict. Most students do not know this. We need to find ways, probably through the newsletter and in responses, to inform them that they can do both. If students do have success in moving to the semi-final or final round, as happened this year, they may miss one or two sessions. We continue to try to work through this. Another challenge is simply being able to find good guest critics. We rely on the kindness and generosity of professional critics who do this for our students. We have been very fortunate with the critics we have had in the past. Still, we need to be aware of this as a potential problem. Indeed, this year we approached one critic who demanded an honorarium far beyond our budget. A reasonable honorarium is fair given the amount of work we expect of a critic, but we do need to remain mindful of our budgetary constraints. As noted earlier, the critic is becoming a bit of an endangered species in the world of the theater. When possible, we will continue to try to draw on “local” critics, to reduce the cost of bringing and housing the Guest Critic as we did this year. If the festival does move to IUP again, however, we may need to bring in a critic from the outside, since there are no established critics in the area. In any event, this will be a continuing area of concern.

Conclusion

Given the small size of the program (or because of it), OCI has been very successful in Region II. Our regional OCI winners have represented the region at Kennedy Center quite well. More importantly, though, those students who participate and do not win find this to be a most valuable experience, as indicated by comments they make throughout the festival. As was the case again this year, OCI is regarded as an intense and rewarding experience, defined more by a sense of learning and camaraderie than by competition.

Winner: Andrew Vitalo, Penn State—Berks Campus Alternate: Tyler Crumrine, Grove City College

Dramaturgy Final Report 2011, submitted by Robyn Quick

Introduction

The dramaturgy initiative in our region is designed to help to develop dramaturgical skills among all theatre artists and to serve the needs of students who specifically identify as dramaturgs. We offered several wonderful workshops on dramaturgical skills that were attended by students with a variety of interests in theatre. We are pleased to have reached out to the larger festival population, since that is an important part of our mission. A workshop featuring the plays of August Wilson was particularly well attended and successful. Certainly the idea of presenting learning experiences for those interested in African American work seems wise for future festivals. It may also be that workshops targeted toward particular playwrights or genres will find a strong audience as well. Our dramaturgical programming also offered excellent opportunities for students with interest and experience in dramaturgy. We had six entries in the student dramaturgy initiative and nine students in the guerilla dramaturgy program. The experience of these students was well served by our guest dramaturg, who offered thoughtful and supportive individual responses to the SDI entries. The support of the NPP playwrights and directors also allowed us to provide hands-on experiences that our guerilla dramaturgs particularly appreciated. Last year, dramaturgy workshops were nearly exclusively attended by those who had entered the dramaturgy initiative. That same group also made up the majority of guerilla dramaturgs. We were sorry not to have better served the general festival population. This year we were more successful in reaching beyond self-identified dramaturgs. We had similar numbers of students interested in the guerilla dramaturgy program as last year, but the group was mixed, with some experienced dramaturgs and others who were curious about trying something new. We were pleased to have reached both groups. One area of our programming that has been growing rather consistently over the past several years seemed to

stall a bit this year. We had fewer entries in the student dramaturgy initiative than we have in many past years. Even with an extended deadline, we only had six entries. That is on the lower end of the number we have received since our area began to blossom. The more disappointing fact was that only two of those students actually came to the response session. We were quite surprised by this turn of events, because we have been successful in the past several years at getting all of the students who entered to understand the value of the response session. Clearly this is an area that needs our attention next year. Despite this small set-back, I believe the area is healthy and can continue to serve both of our main goals quite well in the future. Student Participants

Our dramaturgy workshops reached out to students with a variety of interests in theatre. We had between 10 and 25 participants for most workshops and the group was very different for each workshop, which means we served a larger total number of students. In some cases, in fact, students with specific interest in dramaturgy were busy with their guerilla activities and could not attend other dramaturgical workshops. This issue of scheduling may be unavoidable and the students expressed pleasure with their experience as guerilla dramaturgs. In the future, we may want to see if there are some workshops, such as the one on dramaturgical research, that could be worked into the guerilla schedule so they can attend. The guerillas consisted of students with dramaturgical experience and those who thought it would be an interesting new task to try. Three students who had been guerilla dramaturgs at past festivals returned to do it again this year, and one brought her twin sister to participate. This bodes well for the appeal of the program and future participation. As stated above, only two of the six students who entered the dramaturgy initiative attended the response session. Three did not attend the festival, and one of those three did write to explain that should could not be there but to ask for feedback. Our guest dramaturg was gracious enough to communicate with this student privately about her work. One of the missing students attended the festival, but not the response session.

Guest This year’s guest dramaturg was Michele Volansky, who also served as our guest for the 2006 festival. She is a former past president of LMDA and an Elliott Hayes Award Winner. She also has extensive experience as a dramaturg in the professional world at theatres such as Steppenwolf, Actor’s Theatre of Louisville and the Philadelphia Theatre Company. She is currently an associate professor at Washington College. She presented two workshops in addition to the response session for the dramaturgy entries. Her workshops were extremely lively and informative. Although there were only two students who attended the response session, she spent the entire two hours with those students. She conversed with them about their projects and then answered their questions about future projects and the profession. She was extremely supportive of those students. I highly recommend her for other regions or future years in our region.

Workshops Our workshops covered a range of topics related to dramaturgy, including: critical thinking about the

theatre, new play development, dramaturgical research, the plays of August Wilson, and finding a vocabulary for talking about performance. There were about 10 - 15 in each workshop, with the Wilson session attracting a high of 25 people and the late Saturday afternoon workshop reaching slightly fewer than 10. The workshops were all very successful. The workshop leaders were knowledgeable and dynamic. The students were deeply engaged in the work. They participated fully in conversations and exercises, and expressed genuine appreciation for the experience.

Guerilla Dramaturgy We had a successful year in guerilla dramaturgy. Nine students participated and were fully committed to

the project. Twelve students attended the initial orientation, but two realized they did not have the time for the project, due to other commitments and one decided he would like to spend his festival time on a wider range of activities. I was glad to have reached this student. He arrived at the festival having never heard of dramaturgy. I encouraged him to attend the guerilla orientation to learn more about it. Although he chose not to work as a guerilla dramaturg, he expressed interest in the field and ended up attending two of our other workshops.

Towson University librarian Lisa Woznicki offered a very informative research session for the guerilla dramaturgs and helped us secure guest accounts so that our guerillas could use the campus library

resources even when they were off-campus during the festival. We were able to supply the students with copy cards rather easily. The issue of copy cards may not be as crucial in the future as it was in the past. It seems the dramaturgs are increasingly sharing information, at least with directors and playwrights, electronically. This might be something to discuss with NPP leaders in advance in future years. That could help us plan for what resources we need.

SDI We had six entries from student dramaturgs, which is on the low end of the range of entries in recent

years. Despite the growth of dramaturgy in the region and the overall increase in entries in past years, more energy needs to placed on promoting the dramaturgy program. As of the postmark deadline for the entries this year, I had only received one entry. After consultation with Ralph Leary and Juliet Wunsch, we announced a one-week extension of the deadline. That generated several more entries, leading to the six we received. The announcement of the extended deadline also generated several emails from students and faculty who had been unaware of the program and wanted even more of an extended deadline (which we felt we must deny). It seems we need to find ways to promote the program better. The newsletter that includes notice of the dramaturgy program is typically distributed in early fall. Perhaps an email reminder to the region 2-3 weeks prior to the deadline would be helpful. I had set the deadline to coincide with the beginning of selection weekend. Perhaps an initial deadline of a week later would help to encourage entries from late fall shows. Other options for publicizing this program could be encouraged. We also need to make sure that students understand the value of the response session. One student who attended the festival but not the response session, explained that she overslept that day. She would have been able to attend part of the session, but did not work to do so because she felt she “did not have to be there.” Clearly we need to emphasize the educational value of this session so that students are motivated to attend.

The Future I hope that dramaturgy programming will continue to offer opportunities for all students, as well as

those who wish to pursue the field of dramaturgy as a potential career choice. We’ve learned that a range of well-planned workshops with the general festival population in mind can fulfill our goal of helping to develop the dramaturgical skills of theatre students with a range of interests in theatre. Through our unique guerilla dramaturgy program, the student dramaturgy initiative, and workshops for students and faculty who create production dramaturgy in their schools, we can continue to support the work of student dramaturgs. Many schools are using student production dramaturgs. We need to make sure they are aware of our programming for them.

It has been my great pleasure to work with the leadership of the region over the last seven years to help develop dramaturgical programming for students at the festival. I believe we have built a solid foundation for future growth. I have recently learned that I was awarded a Fulbright grant to teach dramaturgy in Russia next fall. Thus, I will not be in the country for the planning and, quite possibly, the festival next year. Given this and some other things happening in my professional life, I believe it is a good time for me to step away from the executive board. I will work diligently to find another suitable person in the region to bring new insight and energy to this position, as soon as possible. With Ralph Leary’s knowledge of the program, as well as his incredible warmth and collegiality, I am confident that the transition to this new person will be quite seamless. I am also happy to be useful to the organization in any way that I can. Please feel free to contact me if I can provide any useful information about our past programming. I would also be happy to serve as a guest dramaturg in this or some other region, should that be helpful.

Robyn Quick

Workshop Considerations, Submitted by Lawrence Tatom

Discrete workshop numbers below… overlap is NOT double calculated.

19 in Performance (down from 43, but overlap with Theatre Making)

31 in Design, Technical & Management 8 in Directing & Theatre Making 8 in Dramaturgy, Playwriting & Criticism (some overlap with Theatre Making) 9 in Education, Responding and KCACTF information

This year’s workshops generated considerable energy and enthusiasm as a part of the region’s annual festival. A significant number were maxed out in attendance; in addition, there has been significant discussion about how to add to our offerings in the future, in areas such as Directing and Physical Theatre (including combat). Finally, there has been some preliminary discussions about the possibility of creating a venue for more advanced students to present workshops to the fellow students, perhaps through some form of mentoring system with qualified faculty. This could provide a chance for advanced students to start to explore the teaching process in our field.

STUDENT VOLUNTEERS, submitted by Emily Hildenbrand, Student Leader

My goals were to increase awareness of opportunities available with Volunteering; to promote inter-collegiate communication between volunteers, professors, and coordinators; and to improve the volunteer experience at Festival. I would say I was mildly successful. I did achieve all of the goals to degree, though I know that there are ways that all of these goals could have and possibly should have been pushed further.

I do believe awareness of the volunteer program was increased. There is now a presence of the volunteers on the major social networking sites of Facebook and Twitter. I posted to those relatively frequently before applications were due. There were some followers, though I did not thoroughly promote it once the applications were received. I still see great potential in this realm. Although West Chester is not a major participator in the planning stages anymore, I do hope that this presence stays and increases. I got the ball rolling; it is time for someone else to pick it up. I emailed a few professors whose school had a large contingent of volunteers. They seemed to appreciate the communication. It is sad to say that the resulting volunteer numbers from those schools were lacking. The direct communication seemed to have no impact on awareness of the volunteer program, though it did bolster inter-college communication. Flyers were never made. I do believe that there is still potential in that field and hope that is accomplished by the next coordinator. The inter-collegiate communication was increased. I had more communication with potential volunteers through E-mail. I also utilized the social networking sites. I was not realistic on the amount of time I had to work on these projects before and during festival. I did not implement a Buddy Program. I still think that this is a good idea, but the same sort of goals could be achieved with greater attention given to the social networking communications. If there was a greater amount of followers and more invitations of those for interaction, the dialogue between college students from around the region could begin. When it came to assigning students this year, I did attempt to make it so people from different colleges worked together. However, my scheduling was revamped multiple times due to unforeseen conflicts. It appeared that there was inter-mingling of volunteers from different schools. I hope friendships and networks were formed. There was a notably mingling and camaraderie found in our student lounge. I believe the lounge was the biggest success in the volunteer area this year. It was beneficial to have an area where people could even just stop in for a second. Students from West Chester University, Towson, IUP, McDaniel and a few others all made use of this lounge. They seemed genuinely grateful to have a space to relax and grab refreshment. This atmosphere was conducive to inter-collegiate communication. The overwhelming success of the lounge is also a very large contributing factor to the improvement of volunteer experience at festival. It seemed to be a reward for volunteering that was beyond appreciated. I did not acknowledge or award those volunteers who went above and beyond. I do regret not being able to show my appreciation to all that helped. I do think that if they were a greater presence of acknowledgement there might be better satisfaction. It was once again my unrealistic evaluation of time that did not allow for me to prepare an award or acknowledgement. I allowed this time constraint to also hinder my ideas for information packets, and feedback surveys. Neither of those were accomplished. All of the time I thought I would have was eaten away by another assignment: Late Night Events. The last plan I was hoping to implement was better scheduling through a better understanding of conflicts. Through a series of communication break downs which I did everything in my power to correct, this was not accomplished. I know that there were volunteers scheduled who did no jobs at all because of miscommunication with the area heads. A few people even worked above and beyond their time commitments. Their extra time was never more than an hour. Still, this should be unacceptable. I blame myself and unclear communication in the planning stages. I hope as this continues on communication becomes more clear. Though, these are some of the same problems that were faced with the previous year. The jobs that are required at each festival switch from year to year, and these changes are not always clear or easy to navigate and staff.

Overall I believe I was successful in my goals, even if all of action plans did not come to fruition. I was un realistic about time, but who knew I would be taking on another area when I made these goals. I believe that the importance of volunteers committing to their time once at the festival; however, there was a disturbing trend this year of volunteers dropping out before arriving. Curtailing this trend needs to be a new goal. There needs to be a better explanation about the importance of volunteers and the importance of commitment once accepted. Communication, awareness, and improving the volunteer experience are all goals that will never be fully realized. I hope that whoever continues in this job will continue to strive for that excellence.