Acting
Irene Ryan Acting Scholarship
The National Stage Combat Workshop
Fellowship
Awarded to a national finalist in the Irene
Ryan Acting Scholarship Program
Initiated in 1992, KCACTF and the Society of American Fight Directors
will again offer a fellowship to one of the Irene Ryan Acting
Award national finalists to attend the 2000 National Stage Combat
Workshop.
Taking place for three weeks each summer at the University of
Nevada, Las Vegas, the National Stage Combat Workshop involves
intensive study in many aspects of the art of stage combat. The
NSCW provides the stage combat student with the opportunity to
study with SAFD fight masters, the top professional fight directors
in the country. The workshop includes up to eight hours of daily
instruction from four SAFD fight masters. Intensive instruction
is provided in rapier and dagger, smallsword, broadsword, quarterstaff,
and unarmed stage combat. All weapons are provided. At the close
of the workshop, the student has the opportunity to take the SAFD
actor/combatant skills proficiency test.
A representative of the Society of American Fight Directors will
serve as an Irene Ryan national respondent and will select the
recipient of the SAFD fellowship.
Classical Acting Award of Excellence
Awarded to a national finalist in the Irene
Ryan Acting Scholarship Program
The Classical Acting Award of Excellence, a $500 cash award,
is presented to one of the Irene Ryan Acting Scholarship national
finalists each spring. The award, founded in 1995, has as its
primary goal to foster the finest in classical acting on the national
level. It is the belief of the founders that the greatest in contemporary
acting springs from a strong grounding in classical and modern
training.
The Classical Acting Award is funded through charitable contributions
by present and past members of the National Committee of the Kennedy
Center American College Theatre Festival. A representative of
the National Trust for KCACTF, the award's founders, will serve
as an Irene Ryan national judge and will select the recipient
of the Classical Acting Award of Excellence.
Williamstown Theatre Festival
Apprenticeship
Awarded to a national finalist in the Irene
Ryan Acting Scholarship Program
A representative from the Williamstown Theatre Festival will
serve as a national judge at the Irene Ryan Winners’ Circle Evening
of Scenes and will select an actor of color to receive the annual
KCACTF Williamstown Theatre Festival Apprenticeship. This scholarship
is made possible by the Williamstown Theatre Festival’s Everett
Scholarship Fund to provide financial assistance for minority
applicants to the annual Apprentice Workshop.
Located on the campus of Williams College in the Berkshire hills
of northwestern Massachusetts, the Williamstown Theatre Festival
has acquired a national reputation for the artists it attracts
and the gifted young actors, designers and directors it sends
out into the world. Over 2,000 individuals have completed the
Williamstown Theatre Festival’s Apprentice Workshop. Santo Loquasto,
Kate Hudson, Christopher Reeve, Sigourney Weaver and Jennerifer
Jason Leigh all started their careers as WTF apprentices.
Apprentices alternate workshop classes and rotating production
assignments. The apprentice will take intensive courses in acting,
voice and movement, present scenes in progress and attend special
seminars with guest and resident artists in acting, design, directing
and playwriting. The apprentices also work in the theater’s scenes
shop, publicity department, box office, production, administration
and costumes. In eleven weeks, the apprentice will gain a thorough
first-hand knowledge of the operation of a first-class professional
theater.
The Mark Twain Comedy Acting Awards
Awarded to a national finalist in the Irene
Ryan Acting Scholarship Program
$2,500 - First Place
$2,000- Second Place
The Mark Twain Comedy Acting Award will be presented to two of
the Irene Ryan Acting Award national finalists each spring. A
first place cash award $2,500 and a second place cash awash of
$2000 will be given for the best comic performance in the National
Irene Ryan Evening of Scenes. Founded in 1999 and supported by
Comedy Central, Inc. the award has as its primary goal to foster
the finest in comic acting on the national level.
The Dell 'Arte Fellowship
Awarded to a national finalist in the Irene
Ryan Acting Scholarship Program
KCACTF is delighted to offer the first annual Dell'Arte Fellowship
to be awarded to an Irene Ryan national finalist. Dell'Arte International
is a unique organization devotedto the art of the actor/creator
and to the development of "Theatre of Place." Dell'Arte has become
an American center for the exploration, performance, training
and development of physical performance, attracting students from
all over the world, and sending productions around the region,
the country, and the globe. Dell'Arte is located in the middle
of the Pacific coast redwood region of Northern California Blue
Lake. The Dell'Arte Mad River Festival is an international month-long
festival featuring comedy, physical performance, music, vaudeville
and cutting-edge art forms. The festival truly presents work from
around the world and down the block.
The American and European popular theatre forms of physical art,
which are the basis of training at the Dell'Arte International
School of Physical Theatre, a full time professional training
program, set the school apart from most university and conservatory
programs which rarely offer the study of popular forms. Dell'Arte
has become one of the few actor-managed organizations in the United
States to support a resident ensemble for twenty-five years.
Fellows will take daily classes offered by resident faculty and
master classes by the international guest artists in residence
for the Mad River Festival. A representative from Dell'Arte will
serve as an Irene Ryan national judge and will have sole responsibility
for the selection of the fellowship recipient.
Dell'Arte
School
The Margolis Method Summer Intensive
Acting Fellowship
Awarded to two finalists of the Irene
Ryan Acting Scholarship Program
KCACTF is pleased to announce the creation of the Margolis Method
Summer Intensive Acting Fellowships that will be awarded to two
Irene Ryan National finalists.
The Margolis Method Summer Intensive offers a seven-day study
of the performer's physicality as the basis for expression and
gives the performer a muscular vocabulary with which to create
physical dramatic art. Through this rigorous physical and vocal
technique, performers broaden their expressive range and garner
the skills that allow them to create meaningful original theater
productions that place the actor at the center of the creative
process. In a demanding yet supportive atmosphere, this class
fosters artists’ ensemble awareness and improvisational skills.
Inspired by the work of Decroux, Grotowski and Brecht, the Margolis
Method reflects 25 years of research. All classes are taught by
Kari Margolis, and are held at the Margolis Brown Theater Company's
new Historic Landmark building in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
With the physical actor at the center of the creative process,
the Margolis Brown Theater Company merges other media to create
a modern theater of spectacle and celebration that is rich in
metaphor, one that grabs an audience both emotionally and intellectually
and affects them for a long time afterwards. The Company's research
centers on the dramatic force and emotion that emanates from an
actor's physicality.
Kari Margolis will serve as an Irene Ryan National Judge and
will select the two fellowship recipients.
The Sundance Theatre Lab Acting
Fellowship
Awarded to a national finalist in the Irene
Ryan Acting Scholarship Program
The KCACTF is pleased announce the first annual Sundance Theatre
Laboratory Acting Fellowship to be awarded to a national finalist
in the Irene Ryan Acting Scholarship Program. The Sundance Theatre
Laboratory is a three-week long workshop which offers playwrights,
directors, choreographers, composers, solo performers, and ensembles
the time, space, and support to develop new plays and musicals
or to explore new approaches to existing scripts. The Lab provides
a protected environment, without the pressures of production,
and an ensemble of professional actors and resource artists to
help shape work. The Sundance Theatre Laboratory is held in July
at Sundance in Utah. Projects rehearse every day and actors are
usually double cast. The KCACTF Sundance fellow will be part of
the acting ensemble for the three-week workshop. Room, board,
and transportation are provided. A representative from the Sundance
Institute will serve as an Irene Ryan national judge and will
select the Sundance acting fellowship recipient.
Sundance Theatre
Laboratory
The New England Theatre Conference
Acting Awards are awarded in two categories:
Award for Excellence in Classical Acting - $150
Award for Excellence in Comic Acting - $150
Students participating in the Semi-final level of the Irene Ryan
Acting Scholarship Auditions in Region I will be selected for
these two awards by the judges of the semi-finals.
