Merced College students part of theater festival

Merced College students will join a coalition from 10 colleges and universities selected for a Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival in Hawaii in February 2016, according to a news release.

The center’s regional governing board picked the college’s theater department to participate in the “Evening of Invited Scenes” category at the University of Hawaii for the 48th annual festival. Merced College’s original production of “Suijin & The Kappa” is set to be performed by a cast of local theater students.

“I cannot tell you what an opportunity like this means to our community college students,” theater arts professor Carin Heidelbach said, in a news release. “This is an opportunity to be seen in a competitive environment with our peers from other larger, more prestigious institutions.”

“Suijin and the Kappa,” which was performed in Merced in November, is an original play written and directed by Merced College theater arts students in the Japanese styles of Anime, Bunraku and Kabuki.

Heidelbach said the festival will be an opportunity for students to mingle with faculty from colleges, and to participate in a competition with the potential to catapult the student artists to the next level of professionalism.

Several of the college’s students have been nominated to participate in the Irene Ryan acting competition, she said, which awards scholarships to regional winners and parlays entry into the national competition in April in Washington D.C.

“In addition to the actors, we have two students who will be participating in the festival’s stage management and lighting design programs,” she said.

The Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival is a year-round program in eight regions in the U.S. In January and February of each year, regional festivals showcase each region’s productions and offer a variety of activities.

This region includes community colleges and four-year schools from central and Southern California, Arizona, southern Nevada, Utah, Hawaii and Guam, according to a news release. The 10 schools involved in this year’s program were picked from 75 applicants.

This story was originally published December 24, 2015 at 5:58 PM with the headline "Merced College students part of theater festival."