Kansas University theater students fared well at the recent Region V Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival in Ames, Iowa.

The KCACTF National Selection Team has chosen to hold two productions from Region V for consideration for the national festival at the Kennedy Center in April. Both the KU production of “Hay Fever,” directed by Jack Wright, professor of theater and film, and “Five Women Wearing the Same Dress,” produced by Emporia State University and directed by Theresa Mitchell, a KU theater alumna, are being held until the final national selections are made in late February after all regional festivals have been completed.

“Suicide by Punchbowl,” by English Alternative Theatre playwright Whitney Rowland, won the regional Ten-Minute Play competition and is being considered for the national festival.

“Lights Fade, Curtain,” also by Rowland, was selected as the best one-act play in a concert reading at the festival, and English Alternative Theatre has been invited to return to the festival next year with a full production of the play.

The EAT production of “Leaves of Words,” by Tim Macy, was well-received at the festival, and the production was awarded three certificates of merit: to Tim Macy for playwriting, Paul Stephen Lim for direction and Megan Smith for stage management.

Both Macy and Rowland have been awarded a full scholarship, all expenses paid, to attend the Great Plains Theatre Conference in Omaha, Neb., May 26-June 5, featuring three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Edward Albee and other theater luminaries. The plays by Macy and Rowland will be presented as staged readings at the conference, and they will get feedback from Albee, Emily Mann, Romulus Linney and Arthur Kopit, among others.

Kelly Vogel, a third-year scenography graduate student from Lawrence, received the KCACTF Award of Merit for her scenic design for “Hay Fever.” She also won first prize in the Technical Design Expo for her costume design for “Something’s Afoot,” produced last summer as part of KU’s Kansas Mystery Theatre.

Tim Boeshaar, Mission Hills senior in theater design, won first place in the Technical Design Expo for his lighting design for “The Skin of Our Teeth.” He also received first prize in the regional David L. Thayer Lighting Design Workshop/Competition. The Thayer competition provides an opportunity for students interested in lighting design to share ideas and compete with other students in an adjudicated workshop. There were 15 entrants in the competition and seven were selected to perform at the regional level. Boeshaar won a gift certificate from Border’s Books and Music.