‘Berg Student’s Play Selected for Festival Production
Serpentine, an original one-act play by Muhlenberg student Brendon Votipka ’09, was selected to participate in this year’s Region II Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF).Tuesday, January 8, 2008 01:59 PM
It has been recommended by national adjudicator Judith Ivy for consideration to be performed at the national festival at Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in spring. The play is also entered in the national Michael Kanin Playwriting Awards Program. These awards are designed to give recognition to student-written plays that are produced at colleges and universities across the nation and to encourage young writers to develop their interest in playwriting.
Votipka, a native of Colorado, has been writing for the stage since 2003 and is studying directing, playwriting and performance. Many professional companies, schools and training programs have mounted his work, including Nows, Every Time I Fall, Upstairs Bedroom and Heads Up. For his first play, Common Ground, Votipka was the 2004 recipient of the International Thespian Society Playworks Competition Award. This play was subsequently published by Playscripts, Inc. and has received over 80 productions. Other publishers of Votipka’s work include Dramatics Magazine, Kaleidoscope Annual, and the Smith and Krause Anthologies of Best Scenes and Best Female Monologues of 2005. He served for a summer as a Powerhouse Playwright Apprentice for New York Stage & Film and spent this last autumn studying drama at Goldsmiths College in London.
Serpentine is a surprisingly adult teen drama that explores the social, emotional and sexual pressures that motivate teens to respond in unpredictable ways. Two siblings and a best friend are caught in the turmoil of discovering the consequences of acting too quickly on their impulses. “I think we wake up in the morning wanting to feel something,” Votipka explains. “We want to feel at peace with the choices we make and affirmed in the way loved ones judge these choices. Sometimes being yourself can be an uphill battle, especially when you are growing up. As the characters in Serpentine reach for the connections they want, they are confronted by forces telling them who to be and how to be.”
The Irene Ryan Acting Scholarships at KCACTF provide recognition, honor, and financial assistance to outstanding student performers wishing to pursue further education. This year’s Region II Irene Ryan nominees who performed in the New Voices program of work by Muhlenberg playwrights are Patrick Scheid (Connor in Serpentine), Steve Balliet (Colin in Set), and Kamila Jacob (Princess in Princess). Muhlenberg students nominated from other productions include: Anna Gothard (Alice) and Natalie Cutcher (Freda) in Al Takes a Bride by Caryl Churchill, directed by senior Dan McClung; Wilma Cespedes-Rivera (Monkey in the Middle by Brighde Mullins, directed by Beth Schachter of the theatre faculty), David Bass-Clark (Corps, an original dance-theatre creation by Chris Shephard’07)) and Colin Hooker-Haring and Liz Wasser (Gilbert and Sullivan’s Ruddigore, directed by Charles Richter). Richter, director of the theatre program at Muhlenberg, and Tim Averill, faculty scenic designer, will accompany 30 Muhlenberg students to the festival to participate. Two Muhlenberg design students, Doug Kupferman (scenery) and Jake Nelson (lighting) will participate in the festival design exhibit, which is reviewed by professional designers who then offer feedback. One student in each of the design areas (scenery, costumes, lighting) will be nominated for the national Barbizon Award for Theatrical Design Excellence.
Twelve Regional KCACTF Festivals are held across the country every January and February which showcase the finest of each region’s entered productions, and a national teem of adjudicators sees all of the regional productions to determine which will be produced in spring at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. Pennsylvania colleges participate in the Mid-Atlantic Region II, which also includes New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, and Washington D.C. The 2008 regional festival was held at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA on January 2-8.
The KCACTF’s mission is to encourage, recognize, and celebrate the finest and most diverse work produced in university and college theater programs. Through state, regional, and national festivals, KCACTF participants celebrate the creative process, see one another's work, and share experiences and insights within the community of theater artists. The KCACTF honors excellence of overall production and offers individual recognition through awards and scholarships in playwriting, acting, criticism, directing, and design.
Muhlenberg College’s department of theatre & dance is recognized by Fiske Guide to Colleges and the Princeton Review as one of the top programs among small colleges across the nation. The faculty’s unique approach to education infuses rigorous artistic training with the intellectual breadth and ethical vitality of the liberal arts, and the dedication to student-centered and student-developed work encourages students to use their intellectual, artistic, and interpersonal skills to become independent thinkers and dynamic creators. This fall, four student directors and six student playwrights were given opportunities to showcase their work to the campus and the community in NEW VISIONS and NEW VOICES, recurring programs of the department which encourage student playwrights and directors.
