Louisiana State AACTFest'09

Central Louisiana Community Theatre - City Park Players - was honored and pleased to host The Louisiana State AACTFest ’09 – It’s Your Turn To Shine on February 27 and 28 here in Alexandria, LA. This event was supported in part by a grant from the Roy O. Martin Foundation as administered by the Arts Council of Central Louisiana and GAEDA, the Greater Alexandria Economic Development Authority. Utilizing both the Coughlin Saunders Performing Arts Center and the Hearn Stage at the Kress Theatre, we welcomed representatives from 11 Louisiana Community Theatre groups plus AACT President, Bill Muchow, from Minneapolis, MN, Eugene Irby, AACT Region 6 Representative from New Mexico and Darlene DeLorenzo, AACT Region 6 Representative from Lago Vista, TX.

AACTFest is an adjudicated theatre performance festival held as part of the American Association of Community Theatre festival cycle. The cycle includes state and regional festivals and culminates with a biennial National AACTFest. This year’s National Festival is June 24-28, in Tacoma, WA. Performances of 5 different plays by 5 theatre groups from community theatres across Louisiana were presented. Each eligible entry was publicly adjudicated by judges, Cranston Dodds from Corsicana, TX and Dr. Rhonda Shook of LSU-A. The top two entries will advance to the Region 6 AACTFest’09 held in Kerrville, Texas on April 15-19, 2009. This honor was bestowed on Opelousas Little Theatre for their production of a selection from John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men and the City Park Players production of The Dinner Party by Neil Simon. In the event that these shows are unable to go to the Region 6 festival, the two alternates are: The Baton Rouge UpStage Theatre Company's production of the Pearl Cleage play A Song for Coretta and /or the Marksville, LA Le Theatre des bon Temps production of Murder is a Drag , an original play by the Unusual Suspects, a local theatre troupe.

A Louisiana state community theatre group organizational meeting was held as one of the events on Saturday. It was well attended by interested theatre groups and the next meeting is scheduled to take place on June 13. It will be hosted by Opelousas Little Theatre. For more information contact Wanda Schenk, local AACT Representative.