Kennedy Center Festival beckons Clark theatre students

From January 28-31, Clark theatre students attended the Kennedy Center American College Festival (KCATF) at Central Connecticut State University, having been nominated and selected for a variety of internships and awards following the fall show, The Moors.

When Jessie Darrell-Jarbadan, associate professor of practice and the program director for theatre arts, invited KCATF representatives to view The Moors, she did not entirely know what to expect. Emmett Buhman, chair of the festival planning committee, drove in from Bridgewater State to attend the show, and led the cast and crew in a professional feedback session. The experience allowed students to examine their creative process while receiving advice from an industry professional.

Clark had never previously competed in the KCATF competitions and had only exhibited technical designs in the Kennedy Center’s Design, Technology and Management Expo. Theatre major Lilly Trentacosta ’27 was nominated for the Irene Ryan award for her portrayal of Huldey in The Moors. The competition required Trentacosta to do a scene in four minutes, followed by a monologue.

“There were a lot of interesting things at the conference,” Trentacosta says. “There was the competition part, and then there are also workshops and lessons from different theater teachers around this area. I was really excited to get to learn from new teachers”

Technical theatre major Alyssa Swibble-Martinez ’26 exhibited work at the conference, with her lighting design for The Moors being selected for presentation in the Design, Technology and Management Expo.

A significant challenge, Swibble-Martinez says, is that the rooms in which the play are all intended to look the same.

“I asked myself, how am I supposed to make the lighting interesting if everything is supposed to look the same?” Swibble-Martinez says. “I decided to use different colors to represent each room and change the angle of the light to represent the change in location while keeping the general look consistent.”

Swibble-Martinez advises students hoping to make it to the Kennedy Center festival to try everything “even if you don’t know exactly how to do it.” Trentacosta echoes this.

“I would say try out for everything,” she says. “See what you flow with, because I think everyone in theatre spaces at Clark is just so welcoming and so excited to meet new people.”

KCATF has become more accessible to students this year, making it easier for Clarkies interested in theatre to access resources and training.

“The new leadership is really focused on making sure that students who don’t have financial, cultural, and educational privilege are still able to access all of the competitions and internships that are available there,” Darrell-Jarbadan says. “They’ve removed that hierarchical aspect of the nominations and made it more student-focused, and less winner-loser focused. They’re trying to make sure that the conference is really giving the students what they need, as opposed to what the adults think they need.”

Along with Trentacosta and Swibble-Martinez, Stella Chinchilla ’27, Elizabeth Zinno ’25, and Ruth Myint ’27 earned scholarships to do internships at the conference, receiving training and networking opportunities in Directing, Arts Management, Stage Management, and Production Management. Trentacosta, Chinchilla, Lucy Teixeira ’28, Eva Roux ’26, Aziliz Dubois ’25, and Eva Sanchez-Navitsky ’26 all competed for the Irene Ryan scholarship and auditioned for roles in the festival’s 10-minute plays and the one act plays.

Zinno was recognized for her work as a stage manager for the new play festival with an outstanding principle stage manager award. Trentacosta and Teixeira were cast in 10-minute plays during the festival. Dubois was cast in the festival’s one act plays and recognized for outstanding performance. Sanchez-Navitsky made it to the final round of the Irene Ryan competition.

“The educators at the conference are very unbiased and very experienced,” says Swibble-Martinez, who was excited by the prospect of working with people from all over the country “and getting their perspectives and feedback on my work.”

Darrell-Jarbadan shares this excitement for her students.

“This gives Clarkies a lot more tools in their toolbox to try out on their own, in their own projects or their own classes, and it also focuses more on the collaborative aspect and less of that super competitive side we often get in high school,” Darrell-Jarbadan says. “I really think that it gives students an idea of the possibilities ahead of them in their careers.”