design from sketchify on Canva.
By Cameron Harris, Sofia Cerebuch and Anna Messick
MONTGOMERY, Ala.— AUM hosted the annual ACTF Region four conference this year, a huge honor in the world of collegiate theater.
“The American College Theater Festival is a national network of college theaters that basically, for this week, the region is getting together, and they are celebrating and looking at theater, celebrating theater from throughout our region, bringing in the best of the best,” said Neil David Seibel (ND), a professor of theater here at AUM and he also the director of performance for the theater department.
The conference will consist of speakers, panels, workshops and competitions for students to network and engage in opportunities for scholastic advancement. AUM’s theater department was chosen to conduct a show alongside other regional schools like Troy and Alabama State University (ASU). AUM was slated to host the conference in 2021 but was cancelled due to COVID. “It feels really cool cause I’m in the graduate school, so it feels really like full circle because I got to attend the conference as a student, and we took a show, so it was was really fun having the conference come here, because we were actually, we were supposed to host it in 2021, and then COVID happened,” said Faith Roberts a graduate student and the administrative associate for Theater Operations.
Tyreanna Causey, a communication and journalism major at AUM, said that hosting this type of event is a great recognition and prestige for the university and that being directly involved in it is a great honor. “I feel honored to have a competition of this caliber here at our school because it puts AUM in the spotlight,” said Causey. She added that this festival is a great opportunity for the university to make itself known in various states and to strengthen the theater department, bringing strong visibility.
Tyreanna is very active on campus, and you will find her as a Homecoming queen candidate during the weekend. She is also involved in theater activities. In fact, she took part in the festival competition by showcasing her work as a costume designer for the show staged by the department, The Birdz, a play by Aristophanes, adapted by Professor Neil David Seibel.
Cadence Montgomery, a senior costume designer from Morehead State University in Kentucky, encourages students to branch out and explore their options when it comes to theatre. Montgomery explains how she initially started pursuing theatre as an actress before discovering how much she enjoyed creating costumes. “Designing costumes is really fun and I’ve never really been artistic,” Montgomery noted. “This is a really good way for me to be artistic and create things that get to be used in the real world.”
When asked what advice she would give to students looking to get into their schools theatre department, “I would say that trying everything really helps you decide what you like.” said Montgomery.
Concluding the ACTF Conference, AUMs theatre department takes home several individual and program honors. Thanks to the show staged “The Birdz”, the department distinguished itself at the Region IV festival, having been selected as one of only five shows to be staged at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. AUM concludes this experience with several awards, including the Golden Hard Hat Award, che recognizing outstanding organization, communication, and safety during the load-in and load-out of an invited production.
