The Northeast State Department of Theatre’s Spring season production, "Wiley and the Hairy Man," earned praise for using creative stagecraft and video to keep theateralive in lockdown. The latest accolade comes as an invitation to take the show on the road.
Produced in Spring 2021, the play earned 10 nominations for students from theKennedy Center American College Theatre FestivalRegion IV judges. The KCACTF also extended Northeast State Theatre a coveted invitation to perform "Wiley"at the Region IV festival happening virtually from Feb.1-6.
“It was one of the most ambitious shows we had done in a long time with all the puppets that had to be hand-carved and hand-painted,” said Bradley McKenzie, technical director of Northeast State Theatre. “In the history of Northeast State Theatre, this is the first time we’ve been invited to the regional Kennedy Center festival to perform.”
KCACTF Region IV includes two-year and four-year institutions in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Puerto Ricoand the U.S. Virgin Islands. The region holds an annual festival the first week in February at a college or university in the region. Theaterdepartments and/or programs enter productions as either participant or associate level entries.
A college or university theaterdepartment registers its performed plays as associate productions with the Region IV administration. The registration invites a proctor to adjudicate the performance in an array of performance categories. Northeast State Theatre also filed as a participation play for "Wiley"giving two proctors notice to judge the play.
Those proctors referred "Wiley"as a reviewed production to a panel of judges. The panel reviewed dozens of submissions and selected the top six productions to be presented at the regional festival. The selection qualifies"Wiley"as a nominee for the national KCACTF competition. The invitees vie for selection to represent Region IV at the National KCACTF Festival scheduled this year for the week of April 11 in Washington, D.C.
“This invitation represents an enormous honor for our department and the students who contributed to making the production happen,” said McKenzie. “I’m really grateful and blessed that so many people have continued to be involved with theateras we have tried to navigate through COVID-19 era.”
Separated from live audiences and each other by COVID-19 restrictions, theaterfaculty and students rallied to create puppets, scene designs, costumes, and sounds to tell the story of "Wiley." The crew built individual recording booths to space actors while they recorded their lines together. Actors recorded the dialogue in character for the scenes. Crew members created scenes backdrops, sound design, lighting designand costuming.
Rehearsals were a mix of Zoom meetings and socially-distant masked walk-throughs. Northeast State alumnus and instructor Richard Curtis created the puppets and scene designs. Volunteers masked up and acted out the puppet performance to match the audio recordings. Those performances were videotaped and edited by McKenzie.
“Since 'Wiley'was streamed, we thought it would be fun experiment to submit it as a participating production,” said McKenzie. “I’m humbled and grateful for all the audience and community support that our theaterhas received.”
Judges will view the streaming production of "Wiley"during the Region IV festival. Two proctors from outside the region review all the submissions and recommend the top production for the national festival.
Students earning individual nominations to the festival for "Wiley"are: Steven Hathaway – Student Sound Design; Cheyenne King – Student Costume Design; Matthew Parvin – Student Stage Management; Hannah Price – Student Music Director; Gavin Mann – Allied Design (Props); SarahGrace Triplett – Irene Ryan Scholarship (Performance); Jillian Cox – Irene Ryan Scholarship (Performance); and Emily Proffitt – Irene Ryan Scholarship (Performance).
Student nominees submitted monologues required for their Irene Ryan acting nominations earlier this month. Design nominees create websites to display their work for the competition.
