Students were nominated for their roles in recent productions. Courtesy | Tower Players Facebook
Two Hillsdale theatre students were semi-finalists in an acting scholarship hosted by the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival.
Out of the 175 people who entered the competition, the judges selected 45 individuals to compete in the semi-finalist round. Among those the judges picked were sophomore Kenda Showalter and senior Olivia Kroh.
All three actors were nominated for the roles they’ve played in productions over the past year: Kroh was nominated for her performance in “Our Town,” and Showalter was nominated for her performance in “Ada and the Engine.” Senior Matthew Welch was also nominated for his role in “Translations.”
“The festival itself consists of workshops and productions as well as competitions for all aspects of theater, including acting, musical theater, dramaturgy, directing, playwriting, design, stage management, and tech,” Showalter said.
Associate Professor of Theatre Chris Matsos said he viewed Hillsdale’s success at the competition as a reflection of the growing popularity of the theater program.
“I think that we have an outstanding cohort of actors at this campus currently,” Matsos said. “That representation of strong actors is only growing. We have had more students audition for a single play than in previous years for an entire season.”
This is the first time Hillsdale students have attended the event since 2020, in part because the festival moved online due to COVID-19. As a result, the festival’s administration has restructured the way it runs the Irene Ryan scholarship competition, moving the first round of auditions to a video recording format.
“A lot of people discovered that it’s more effective in the first round of the competition to send in video auditions instead of having them in person,” Brandon said. “For the same judges to watch 200 live actors takes days – with videos, you don’t have the same pressure and it’s a more effective way to make calls from 200 people to 40 people.”
The first round of the competition consisted of two monologues, and the second round consisted of a scene with another person and a third monologue.
Kroh said the best part of the experience was the people and the preparation leading up to the competition.
“My favorite part of the experience was getting to workshop my monologue and scene with my friends, and getting the opportunity to perform both that monologue and a scene that I had really worked hard on and was really proud of,” Kroh said.
Showalter said she appreciated the feedback the judges gave on her performance, and enjoyed the experience as a whole.
“I’m so glad I got to perform in-person at the festival in the second round,” Showalter said. “It was an exciting and new experience since before I had only done productions and never acting competitions.”
In addition to the three students who competed in the “Ryans,” as Showalter called the scholarship competition, other students participated in workshops and watched performances from other colleges. Some students, like senior Maureen Martin, submitted their work in the dramaturgy competition.
“We’re trying to be as inclusive a department as possible in terms of the types of stories we want to tell and the number of students that participate,” Matsos said. “That includes things like going on this trip.”
Ultimately, Matsos said he wants the theater program to be a reflection of the student body writ large, and the excellence which Hillsdale brings to events off-campus.
“I really think that the theater department anywhere, but especially here, is ideally the mouthpiece of the campus, the mouthpiece of the liberal arts,” Matsos said. “It’s supposed to be a reflection of the things we’re studying in and engaging in.”
