The West Texas A&M University production of Musical of Musicals has earned several Respondent Awards as a participating production in the 2018 Kennedy Center/American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF) along with a possible invitation to perform at the KCACTF Region VI Festival in February.
The respondents ‘hold’ the production for a possible invitation, and the regional committee decides in December if Musical of Musicals will receive an invitation to advance to the regional competition Feb. 25-28 in Abilene. The Musical of Musicals is an entertaining spoof on musical theatre with a girl, a villain and a hero featured in five mini musicals that parody some of Broadway’s biggest hits.
Respondents from Region VI attended a performance of Musical of Musicals in October and gave the production four Meritorious Achievement Awards as well as three Irene Ryan Acting Awards/Nominations.
The production earned a Meritorious Achievement Award for Ensemble, and Royal Brantley, professor of theatre, was recognized with the Meritorious Achievement Award for Directing. Emilee Rottman, a senior technical theatre major from Trenton, Ill., earned a Meritorious Achievement Award for Costume Design, and Bradley J. Behrmann, visiting assistant professor, also earned a Meritorious Achievement Award for Music Directing.
Three WTAMU students—Anna Holmes, junior musical theatre major from Lubbock, Macy Watts, a senior musical theatre major from Lubbock, and Zach Perrin, a senior musical theatre major from Kerrville—received Irene Ryan Acting Award nominations which gives each student an opportunity to compete in the Regional Irene Ryan Acting Competition at the February KCACTF Festival.
“Of all the awards, I am most pleased with the Meritorious Achievement Award for Ensemble,” Brantley said. “A difficult recognition to receive, it clearly reflects the immense talent of all the WTAMU students involved with Musical of Musicals.”
KCACTF is a national theater program involving students from colleges and universities across the country. The national program that has grown into a network of more than 600 academic institutions, where theater departments and student artists showcase their work and receive outside assessment by KCACTF respondents for the chance to advance to regional festivals in the spring. WTAMU is part of KCACTF Region VI, which represents six states: Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.
WTAMU began participating in KCACTF in 1994, and every production since then has received high praise and/or a chance to advance to the regional festival. Last year’s production of Luna Gale was chosen to advance to the regional festival in March 2018.
-West Texas A&M University
