UAFS theatre wins state festival awards

The University of Arkansas at Fort Smith came away with six awards from the Arkansas State Festival of the Kennedy Center/American College Theatre Festival held Oct. 24-27.

Theatre @ UAFS presented the play “Lend Me a Tenor” for the competition. UAFS students had just performed the play earlier in October as part of Season of Entertainment 33 at UAFS.

Awards included:
• Best load in/load out: UAFS
• Excellence in Honor Crewing: Lee Hartsock of Fort Smith
• Excellence in Honor Crewing: Kendra Carter of Fort Smith
• Irene Ryan nomination for Acting:  Zeke Sidwell of Charleston
• Irene Ryan nomination for Acting: Cody Banning of Fort Smith
• Irene Ryan nomination for Acting: Brett Alexander of Rogers

Bob Stevenson of Fort Smith, theatre director at UAFS, said the six awards tied two other schools for the most awards earned at the festival by an institution.

“I’m really proud, as always, of our continued successes at the state, regional and national festivals,” said Stevenson. “It’s always a great honor to win the Best Load in/Load out award, an award that speaks to our cohesion and unity as a full cast and company, which is one of the main goals of our program.”

UAFS has won this award for the last three years from at least one of the festivals.

“I’m also very proud of Kendra and Lee for their work on the honor crew,” said Stevenson. “The honor crew has two members from each participating school, and they help with the load process for each show. For our students to win both of the awards speaks to the hard-working mentality that we strive to instill here at UAFS.”

Stevenson said Zeke Sidwell, Cody Banning and Brett Alexander will now choose partners and learn two scenes and a monologue to present during the Irene Ryan scholarship competition at the regional festival slated for February.

“This is a process that mimics what they will encounter as actors in the professional world and is a great chance for them to prepare for their careers in theatre,” he said.