Theatre arts department performs at festival
The Glendale Community College Theatre Arts Department earned an invite from the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, Region VIII, to re-stage a scene from the college’s spring 2010 production of “Little Shop of Horrors” on Wednesday at the Los Angeles Theatre Center.
The Evening of Invitational Scenes selection for performance at the festival is considered a great honor by college theater departments. GCC, as part of Region VIII, competes with theater departments from colleges and universities in California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Hawaii and Guam.
The selected scene for performance is the song “Suddenly Seymour” from the GCC production of “Little Shop of Horrors,” directed by Melissa R. Randel with musical direction by Clare Delto, featuring Greg Lewis as Seymour and Lindsey Conway as Audrey, along with the Do-Wop Girls, Chelsea Bearce, Carmen Barkan, and La Crescenta resident Ashley Zabala.
Also during the festival, GCC theatre arts instructor Jeanette D. Farr will be given a festival 2010 Excellence in Theatre Education Award. She will be presented with the award at a dinner event. Farr holds a master of fine arts degree in theatre arts with an emphasis in playwriting from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. At GCC, she is assistant professor of Theatre Arts, producing and directing numerous plays including “Bat Boy: The Musical,” “Bus Stop,” “Fiddler on the Roof” and “A Streetcar Named Desire.”
Farr is an alumnus of the Kennedy Center Summer Playwriting Intensive and was appointed as a Tennessee Williams Scholar with the Sewanee Writers’ Conference in 2010. She is also a member of the Dramatists’ Guild.
Through the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, she has served as a reader for playwriting awards, and has responded to more than 200 new plays. She was past chair of the National Playwriting Program for Region VIII, appointed as Regional Fellow for Region VIII, and served on the National Selection Team for 2010. Farr has recently been appointed national vice chair of playwriting for the festival.
GCC students received four nominations in the Irene Ryan Acting Competition. Glendale residents Edith Kordijan and Amanda Fontoura were nominated from the fall production of “The Servant of Two Masters.” Libby Letlow and Lindsey Conway were nominated from “Little Shop of Horrors.”
After the festival events are over, the next theater production for the college theatre arts department will be a staging of “Two on an Island” by Elmer Rice, a story of two young people searching for happiness and success in New York City. The production will run for two weekends, Thursday through Sunday, beginning March 31 in the Auditorium Mainstage Theatre. For information on show times and reserving tickets, call (818) 240-1000, Ext. 5612.
WENDY GROVE is public information coordinator at Glendale Community College. Her column runs once a month. Reach her at (818) 551-5161 or by e-mail at wgrove@glendale.edu.
