Kennedy Center Theatre Festival Picks UA Drama

Akron, Ohio, Dec. 10, 2003—The Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival announced Dec. 7 that Winesburg, Ohio, a play adapted at The University of Akron for the stage, was chosen for its 36th annual regional festival competition.

The play is a dramatic adaptation of Sherwood Anderson's classic book, Winesburg, Ohio. It will be one of six full-length plays performed during the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival regional festival at Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois. The performances will be at noon and 4 p.m. Friday, Jan. 16, in the 525-seat Center for the Performing Arts Theatre at Illinois State University.

Directed by Theatre Professor James Slowiak, Winesburg, Ohio is the first University of Akron production selected for the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival. Several productions from regional festivals will be invited to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. for performances in the spring.

The University of Akron will present a special, pre-festival performance of Winesburg, Ohio at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 11, in the Sandefur Theatre in Guzzetta Hall, 157 University Avenue, on the UA campus. A reception will follow the performance.

Tickets for the Jan. 11 performance of Winesburg, Ohio are $30. Proceeds will support UA's participation in the festival. Seating in Sandefur Theatre is limited to 100, and tickets must be reserved in advance by calling 330-972-7890.

The 10-member cast of Winesburg, Ohio includes students from The University of Akron School of Dance, Theatre and Arts Administration, and members of the New World Performance Lab, an internationally acclaimed professional theatre company in residence at UA.

Slowiak and the show's cast will travel to Normal to stage the performance at the festival.

Two UA student actors, Debra Danielle Duffy of Wheeling, West Virginia, and Justin Hale of North Canton, Ohio, also were selected to participate in the festival's Irene Ryan Acting Competition.

Winesburg, Ohio was published in 1919. Author Sherwood Anderson created a collage of stories revolving around the residents of a small fictional town in rural Ohio at the beginning of the 20th century.

Slowiak and his company of actors adapted Anderson's book for the stage. Through dramatic storytelling and original music, the production reveals the secret lives of the residents of Winesburg. While appearing to be a simple rural village populated by eccentrics, Winesburg is revealed as a mirror for the complexities of life.

“The issues people are dealing with today—their dreams and passions, loneliness and spiritual emptiness, and even issues such as sexism, racism, and homophobia—are all in Anderson's stories,” says Slowiak. “There is universality in Sherwood Anderson's themes that makes Winesburg an important place to revisit a century later.”

Winesburg, Ohio premiered in October on The University of Akron campus, where it caught the attention of the adjudicators for the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival. With support from the Ohio Humanities Council, the production also traveled this fall to UA's Wayne College campus in Orrville and to Oberlin College.

The cast of Winesburg, Ohio:

Justin Hale, North Canton
Erik Morrison, Massillon
Joshua Douglas, Wadsworth
Christopher Buck, Cuyahoga Falls
Salvatore Motta, Akron
Jacqueline Wren, Cleveland
Jamie Russell, Sterling
Jennifer Danolfo, Wickliffe
Megan Elk, Pittsburgh, PA.
Debra Danielle Duffy, Wheeling, WV

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