ACTF, or better known as American College Theater Festival, commenced for Region 4 this past week in Montgomery, Alabama. Our very own Theater at Roanoke College had the opportunity to attend the festival and partake in some festivities!
We had participants audition for the Irene Ryan Acting scholarship as well as the Musical Theater Intensive. Makenna Keith auditioned for the Irene Ryan scholarship while Zachary Bayers and Kennedy Swineford auditioned for the MTI scholarship. Swineford made it to the finals! They had 8 other participants in the finals, and our Kennedy sang “Astonishing” from Little Women, recalling the emotions and excitement from our production in Fall 2025. More on that further into this publication.
Other participants like Bella Testerman and Alison Dunnegan worked on the Dramaturgical side of Theater, learning about the ways we can help actors feel the show and learn the history of their shows. An interesting thing they also got to do was do dramaturgical work for the Ten-Minute Plays as part of the festival! These shows were written, acted, and directed by festival participants, including our own Maggie Raker and Kennedy Swineford, then performed, of which Lauralee Robinson and Makenna Keith got cast. More on this further into the publication.
Mary L worked with the Stage Management workshops! She got to see the different types of shows and how they tackled the stage management sides of things. She noted that it was interesting to see how the different types of plays compared to each other and especially the duplicate shows with the different interpretations that came with it.
Along with the Stage Management, she worked in the Institute for Theater Journalism alongside our Entertainment section editor, Sabrina Rogers. They talked about what it was like to be a critic, how to write reviews in an effective way, and how to theatrically write about shows! They got the opportunity to meet with Theater Critic Benji Carr of Arts Atlanta Web Magazine and ask a myriad of questions about the industry and what makes an effective theater critic!
Lastly, Abel Gamelin and Zachary Bayers were cast in a staged reading of “Dear Vincent” written by J. Harvey Stone. Bayers noted that throughout the experience, it was a little scary but in the best way possible. Right off the bat, it was a cold read-never seeing the script before reading it for the first time-and the writer telling them things to look out for. Being able to have this experience with Abel was also immensely helpful and cool!
We love our Theater department here at Roanoke College! If you want to see them in action, our next performance is Hurricane Diane at the Olin Theater at 7:30 p.m. on February 19th-21st.
Sabrina Rogers
Entertainment Editor
