New Semester

Hello again all,

This is once again your friendly blog administrator Steven Van Overbeke saying that I hoped you had a wonderful and restful Holiday Season. We here at the Waldorf Theatre Department are already hard at work for the new semester that started just this past week, and what a week it has been!

In this past week we have had our musical of Putting it Together, by Stephen Sondheim switched into the play Woman in Mind by Sir Alan Ayckbourn. Then, following that, we then had emergency auditions for this play in order to fill two roles. As to who was cast in said roles one was Jason Homard, a freshman who will be playing Gerald,and myself Steven Van Overbeke, who will be playing the protagonist’s son Rick.

The next thing on the agenda of this crazy week was the auditions for the following shows True West, which is the main stage show and three other student directed shows Mint, Pillow Man, and Two Rooms. These shows excluding True West, by Sam Shepard are all part of an event that the Waldorf Theatre Department decided to do this year called Three-atre in which those three shows will all run with a different one going each night the week of February 24- March 1st.

For those who do not know what any of those shows are about fear not I will be putting up a blog either by me or one of the other people that are involved in the shows that will give people a brief synopsis of each play including Woman in Mind.
There is one other thing in the department that we are now focusing on that being a regional and national event in theatre known as KCACTF or the Kennedy Center’s American College Theatre Festival. What this is is a festival at which college kids involved in theatre that are nominated by a judge or their college go and perform and they can win awards and scholarships. Along with that this also a place where a person is able to get connection to either internships or they are even able to find work in summer stock plays which are plays that are put on during the summer here.

Now, as to why I bring this up Waldorf for the past several years has been participating in this festival. This year as well is no different. We had two people in the Theatre Department at Waldorf be nominated. They were Jessica Schiermeister, who had the role of Feste in Waldorf’s production of Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare and Immanuel Elliot, who played Malvolio. These two along with their partners Chris Parcher who was Sir Andrew Augecheek in Twelfth Night and Jessica’s scene partner, and Katy Snow who was also in the show as Mariah and Manny’s scene partner will be traveling to Omaha Nebraska in order to compete in the Regional Kennedy Center’s American College Theatre Festival for Region V from January 21s through January 26th. To these four I say break a leg on your scenes.

So, that is what the first week of the new semester here at the Waldorf Theatre Department has brought us. In three simple words I can sum up what this week has been for us here in the Theatre Department: Crazy and Hectic.

In closing I would to say that I hoped everyone had a safe week, and to see you for our next post.

Steven Van Overbeke

Head of Communications for Waldorf Theatre Department