The Illinois State University School of Theatre and Dance’s production of Mother Courage and Her Children has been selected for the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF).
The production will travel to the Festival’s Region III Conference at Saginaw Valley State University in Saginaw, Michigan, on January 8-12.
The School of Theatre and Dance staged the Bertolt Brecht play in Illinois State’s Center for the Performing Arts this past October.
Regional festival productions are judged by a panel chosen by the Kennedy Center and the KCACTF national committee. The best and most diverse productions are selected from regional festivals around the country to participate in the annual noncompetitive national festival at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. in April.
“I could not be more proud of the actors, designers and technicians that brought Mother Courage and Her Children to life,” said Professor Sandi Zielinski, who directed Illinois State’s production. “A group that brought Brecht to an audience that wanted to hear the story and understand the message. How much better can you get?”
Students involved in the production are engaged in fundraising activities to defray travel costs for the regional festival. To find out more about donations, visit http://finearts.illinoisstate.edu/Theatre/Courage. Matching funds are being provided by Illinois State’s Friends of the Arts organization.
Brecht wrote the Mother Couragein response to Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939. He used his notion of epic theatre to stand old ideas on their head, ironically employing comedy and songs, revealing the mechanics of stagecraft and the artificiality of spoken dialogue, even as he exposed the profit motives underlying human conduct.
