Hollins University Theatre Wins Four National Awards at this Year’s Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival

Hollins Theatre has been recognized with national honors in production, direction, performance, and playwriting by the 46^th Annual Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF), sponsored by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. Hollins’ production of Decision Height by Meredith Dayna Levy, a 2012 graduate of the university who is now pursuing her Master of Fine Arts degree in the Playwright’s Lab at Hollins, earned four awards, including Outstanding Production of a New Work; Distinguished Director of a New Work (presented to Ernie Zulia, who chairs the Hollins University theatre department); Distinguished Achievement, Performance and Production Ensembles; and the Harold and Mimi Steinberg National Student Playwriting Award for Levy. The awards recognize individuals from across the United States for their achievements during the eight KCACTF regional festivals that were held January 7 through March 1 of this year. Hollins and Roanoke’s Mill Mountain Theatre co-hosted the Region IV KCACTF in February. The awards were officially presented during the closing ceremony of the KCACTF national festival on Saturday, April 19, at the Kennedy Center. “We are thrilled to be recognized by the Kennedy Center as a university that is not only creating outstanding theatre productions, but providing the training that allows students to do outstanding work,” said Zulia. Hollins Theatre has received 14 Kennedy Center awards in the past 14 months, including two playwriting awards presented to Laura King, a candidate for the Master of Fine Arts degree in playwriting at Hollins, at the Region IV KCACTF last month, and five national Kennedy Center awards given last year to Hollins’ production of Natasha Trethewey’s Bellocq’s Ophelia. The KCACTF encourages and celebrates the finest and most diverse theatrical productions from colleges and universities nationwide. The eight regional festivals and national festival provide an opportunity for college and university theatre departments to present their work, especially new or student-written work, and to receive outside assessment. Since its establishment in 1969, KCACTF has reached millions of theatregoers and made important contributions to the professional development of countless college and university theatre students nationwide.