[314] MTSU Students Score Honors At Regional Theater Festival

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Feb. 16, 2010
EDITORIAL CONTACT: Lisa L. Rollins, 615-898-2919, or lrollins@mtsu.edu

MTSU STUDENTS SCORE HONORS AT REGIONAL THEATER FESTIVAL
Two MTSU Students Score Playwriting Honors During Campus-Hosted KCACTF

(MURFREESBORO)—Some 800 participants from 10 states visited MTSU on Feb. 2-6 for this year’s Region IV Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, known as KCACTF, and along the way, MTSU students helped create event highlights.
Jeff Gibson, immediate past-president of KCACTF and director of MTSU Theatre, said, “Besides the great work that all of our students did in playing festival hosts and impressing our guests with their hospitality and dedication to making the festival a huge success, we also performed two student-written shows for the festival audience.”
In particular, Knoxville senior Josh Ginsburg authored “Ladybug,” one of two student-written plays presented by MTSU during the recent event. (The play received the 2009 David L. Shelton Student-Written Full-Length Award.)
MTSU also staged performances of “Shards of Glass” by Ginsburg and “Portrait of A Mother and Son” by MTSU senior David Bennett, a native of Nevada City, Calif.
Gibson said these two plays, which were both recipients of KCACTF Region IV Student-Written Short Play honors, were shown together as a performance during the February festival, which featured more than 40 workshops and a variety of award programs—from acting and design, to playwriting and more.
At the close of this year’s festival, Gibson said, “Josh Ginsburg was once again recognized for excellence in playwriting, thanks to his play titled ‘Summer of Hummingbirds,’ which was a recipient of one of two 2010 KCACTF Region IV Student-Written Short Play honors.”
In turn, the play will be given a full production at the 2011 regional festival, Gibson shared.
Additionally, the Department of Speech and Theatre recently was notified that Ginsburg’s “Summer of Hummingbirds” has been selected as one of eight national nominees for the inaugural National Partners of the American Theatre Playwriting Award, with the winner to be announced at the KCACTF National Festival in Washington, D.C., in April.
For more information about MTSU Theatre, please access www.mtsu.edu/theatre or call Gibson at 615-898-5916

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With three Nobel Prize winners among its alumni and former faculty, Middle Tennessee State University confers master’s degrees in 10 areas, the Specialist in Education degree, the Doctor of Arts degree and the Doctor of Philosophy degree. MTSU is ranked among the top 100 public universities in the nation in the Forbes “America’s Best Colleges” 2009 survey.