Laurel Christian, Starkville Community Theatre and Actor’s Playhouse Advance to SETC

Over 675 theatre enthusiasts from all over the state converged on Natchez, MS this weekend to participate in the 2009 Mississippi Theatre Association’s annual festival and convention. After viewing 10 high school productions, 8 community theatre productions and 10 theatre for youth productions adjudicators made their final decisions and the winners were announced during a luncheon on Sunday at the Natchez Convention Center.

Actors from Starkville Community Theatre’s production of Catfish Moon by Laddy Sartin and Actor’s Playhouse’s production of Rent School Edition by Jonathan Larson both won the Warren McDaniel Best Production Award for the community theatre division. Due to the number of entrants two theatres qualified for the top awards. Best Director, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress went to Starkville’s Kris Lee, Paul Ruff and Krista Vowell. Best Actress went to Aubrey Hays of WINGS Performing Arts and Best Supporting Actor went to Wade Chambers of Delta Center Stage.

Laurel Christian High School took home the Dominic J. Cunetto Award for Best Production with its depiction of All In The Timing by David Ives. Oak Grove High School was selected as Runner-Up for their production of The Honorable Urashima Taro. Chris Wooten was selected as Best Director from Laurel Christian. Best Actor went to Christian Green from Oak Grove, Best Actress to Kayleigh Richardson of Olive Branch.

With their victory, all three productions will advance to the Southeastern Theatre Conference Festival scheduled in Birmingham, AL during March. At SETC, these theatres will compete against the best productions from nine other Southern states. The winner of the community theatre division will advance to the national, American Association of Community Theatre’s festival held in Tacoma, WA.

The winner of the Theatre for Youth Festival was Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College with their production of “Tails of the Singing River”. Other Runner-Up Best Production in the Theatre For Youth Festival went to Actor’s Playhouse’s production of “Alice in Wonderland”. Best Actor and Best Actress went to Black Rose’s Zacary Burton and Annalee Richards.

During 2008 MTA sponsored a playwriting competition for adults and youth. The call for one-act plays resulted in submissions from around the state in both divisions. During the festival Beth Kander of Jackson was awarded a $500 check for her winning one-act play, See Jane Quit, and Kristen Bankston of Biloxi High School was awarded a $250 check for her one-act play Blame the Fool. The two plays were selected after being reviewed by readers around the state and a final adjudication by playwright and novelist Mark Dunn who selected the final winning scripts. During the festival Dunn said that he was very impressed by the young writers and encouraged them to continue writing.

In the high school division, 18 high schools from across Mississippi participated in some aspect of the festival, which included the 10-Minute Play Festival, the Theatre for Youth Festival and the Individual Events Festival. Nine of these schools presented a play for competition.

“We really enjoyed our time in Natchez. While it was certainly colder than we hoped, the people of Natchez Little Theatre and the City of Natchez were very accommodating. We could not have done it without all of the volunteers from the community,” said MTA outgoing president Tom Booth.

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Community Theatre Division Awards

All-Star Cast

Secondary Division Awards

All Star Cast

Theatre for Youth Festival

All Star Cast

• Chloe Rouse
• Nathan Ford
• Meagan McBeth
• Timothy Cooper
• Lindsey Kelly
• Dena Hawkins
• Dylan Stump
• Rachel Thone
• Dalton Stanley
• Jo Gresham

Secondary Individual Events Festival

Female Monologue

Male Monologue

Musical Female

Musical Male

Duet Acting

Duet Musical

Original Student Written/Scene Performance

Scene Acting

Costume Design

Scene Design

Poster

10-Minute Play Festival

Tags: 2009 Festival

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 4th, 2009 at 11:10 pm and is filed under Awards, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.