On Cue Newsletter
OCTA CONFERENCE Sept- 2022
Linda Roll, editor
llroll69@hotmail.com
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What a great weekend of theatre. It was the first time since Covid struck that this has been held and as usual, it was full of excerpts, workshops, food, drink, games and reconnecting with theatre friends from around the state.
The OCTA Conference took place Labor Day weekend at the Cherry Valley Hotel in Newark, Ohio.
The weekend kicked off on Friday night with a carnival. Each region set up carnival games and encouraged people to play. Peggy Kenney was responsible for the Southwest games. There was a beanbag toss into basketball style hoops and a ping pong ball toss. People received entry coupons upon successful completion of each game. These were placed into a jar and winners were drawn every half hour. Peggy extends thanks to everyone who donated prizes to the booth and a special thank you to Kent Smith who trucked the equipment to Newark. Kevin Noll and his wife brought a cotton candy machine, which was a great hit.
There were also ring toss games, a balloon dart game, a cornhole toss game, a fish bowl toss game and a beanbag toss game. There was also popcorn from a popcorn machine.
A fun time was had by all.
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There were 13 excerpts scheduled Saturday and Sunday.
All of the Southwest excerpts were scheduled on Saturday. Below is a list of excerpts and the awards each received. Congratulations to all the theatres and awards.
Tri-County Players The Women Of Lockerbie:
CINDY MILLER: MERIT IN ACTING AS OLIVE ALLISON
SHARON ROSE TYAHUR: MERIT IN ACTING AS HATTIE
DARREN LEE: MERIT IN ACTING AS BILL LIVINGSTON
The Drama Workshop Bright Star:
DENNIS MURPHY: EXCELLENCE IN DIRECTING
JASON COX: EXCELLENCE IN SOUND DESIGN
DENNIS MURPHY: EXCELLENCE IN COSTUMES
LINDA ABBOTT: EXCELLENCE IN ORCHESTRA
MARISA BANES: EXCELLENCE IN ORCHESTRA
PAUL BREHM: EXCELLENCE IN ORCHESTRA
CHRIS TAYLOR: EXCELLENCE IN ORCHESTRA
CAST OF BRIGHT STAR: EXCELLENCE IN ENSEMBLE
INNOVATheatre Freaky Friday (Youth Show):
MAX FOX: MERIT IN MUSICAL PERFORMANCE AS KATHERINE BLAKE
CAST OF FREAKY FRIDAY: MERIT IN ENSEMBLE
CAST OF FREAKY FRIDAY: MERIT IN SUCCESSFUL PROMOTION IN POSITIVE BODY IMAGE
Mariemont Players The Outsider:
CAST OF THE OUTSIDER: EXCELLENCE IN ENSEMBLE
DOUGLAS BERLON: EXCELLENCE IN DIRECTING
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There were a lot of workshops scheduled over Saturday and Sunday as well. Topics were varied and covered all areas of theatre from the technical, to acting, directing and administration.
Dee Anne Bryll was the workshop leader to train new responders. All 4 of the people who signed up to take this workshop passed with flying colors. Congratulations to Forest and Pamela Fairley from Southwest who are new OCTA responders.
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There were lots of other rewards presented over the weekend.
Travel Award:
INNOVATHEATRE: ART ROUSE TRAVEL AWARD-36 people travelling 147 miles
Production Awards:
FOOTLIGHTERS INC. Something Rotten!
Ryan Oelker: EXCELLENCE IN SET DESIGN
Faye Crawford: OUTSTANDING IN INDIVIDUAL COSTUME DESIGN
Carolyn Martinez: OUTSTANDING IN OVERALL COSTUME DESIGN
CINCINNATI MUSIC THEATRE: Pricilla Queen of the Desert
Elaine Michael, Cathy Ross, & Crew: EXCELLENCE IN INDIVIDUAL COSTUME DESIGN
Web Design:
ACT Cincinnati
MARY STONE: OUTSTANDING IN GRAPHIC DESIGN
BELLKISS ABRIL-ROMAN: OUTSTANDING IN GRAPHIC DESIGN
MARY STONE: EXCELLENCE IN NAVIGATION
BELLKISS ABRIL-ROMAN: EXCELLENCE IN NAVIGATION
MARY STONE: OUTSTANDING IN DIGITAL MEDIA USE
BELLKISS ABRIL-ROMAN: OUTSTANDING IN DIGITAL MEDIA USE
MARY STONE: EXCELLENCE IN REGIONAL REPRESENTATION
BELLKISS ABRIL-ROMAN: EXCELLENCE IN REGIONAL REPRESENTATION
Newsletter Awards
Footlighters, Inc-Libretto
ERICA BEIMESCHE, EDITOR: EXCELLENCE IN SPECIAL INFORMATION: "CURTAIN UP!," "HAVE A SEAT," "A NOTE FROM OUR PRESIDENT," AND "BIRTHDAYS."
ERICA BEIMESCHE, EDITOR: EXCELLENCE IN OCTA NEWS AND USE OF GRAPHICS/PICTURES
ERICA BEIMESCHE, EDITOR: EXCELLENCE IN LAYOUT, WRITING, AND OVERALL QUALITY
The Village Players
PEGGY KENNEY & SHARON SHELTON, EDITORS: EXCELLENCE IN USE OF GRAPHICS/PICTURES AND LAYOUT
PEGGY KENNEY & SHARON SHELTON, EDITORS: EXCELLENCE IN OCTA NEWS
PEGGY KENNEY & SHARON SHELTON, EDITORS: EXCELLENCE IN SPECIAL INFORMATION: "SPOTLIGHT" AND "VINTAGE STORIES
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This year, Dave Meyers from Sunset Players was inducted into the OCTA Hall of Fame. Dave’s family as well as John Wesseling were on hand to accept the award. Anyone who knew or worked with Dave knows that this award was well deserved.
The President has the option to present an award to someone who has gone above and beyond in performing duties assigned to him/her. This year, the recipient was John Masterson from Southwest. John has worked on the treasury committee for a number of years and has manned the Silent Auction room at the OCTA conference as well as the OCTA table at our regional. Congratulation John.
AACT has an award that is presented for service to community theatre.
This year the Robert E. Gard Superior Volunteer Award was presented to Ron and Freida Houck for their 25 plus years of work and dedication to the Footlighters, Inc. Congratulations to both of them.
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At the delegates luncheon on Saturday, nominations for board positions were presented. Judy Berrens was voted in for a 2 year term on the OCTA board. She will join Wayne Kirsch, Carissa Slone, Denise Schneiders, Ray Lebowski, Robert Weidle and Peggy Kenney. At the board meeting on Monday morning, Wayne Kirsch was elected President and Carissa Sloan was elected 2nd Vice President -heading MMPR. Congratulations to both of them.
The Regional Representatives for the coming year are Kevin Noll, John Masterson and Linda Roll. Please, if you are interested in serving our region, talk to Kevin and let him know.
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The final event of the weekend was the introduction of the theme for the 2023 conference which will be held in the Southwest at the Holiday Inn Hotel in Eastgate. Peggy Kenney and Robert Weidle are the co-chairs for the event. 2023 will be OCTA’s 70th anniversary. The theme for the conference is OCTA 2023 Platinum Jubilee-A Million Stars.
Please let Peggy or Robert know if you are interested in working on the committee. Let’s all pull together to make this as outstanding as all of the conferences held in Cincinnati.
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Any errors, mistakes or omissions are not intentional.
Thanks to all of you for being a part of Greater Cincinnati theatre.
June 2022 Linda Roll, editor
llroll69@hotmail.com
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It is so good to be back live once again! It has been a very long time since we have been together.
On June 17-18, the theatre excerpts were once again held at Miami University's Hamilton Campus in Parrish Auditorium. Everyone was excited to once again have the OCTA regional/ACT Fest. Special recognition goes to Amanda Emmons Shumate, ACT's 1st VP, for her excellent job in making sure that everything was in place. Gary Rogers was once again the stage manager and creator of the Memorial video and also the Rouse/Pitocco/Grooms award video. Eric Bardes handled technical aspects of the excerpts. Joy Sharp once again handled pre-registration as she has for the past 20 years. And especially to all of the member groups for tackling the various jobs needed to make this event work. We are the ONLY region in Ohio where every group does its part. We are very blessed to have this community of theatres.
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For those of you who wonder about this festival, OCTA is the reason we have the excerpts. The number of excerpts determines the number of entries each region will send to the state OCTAFest over Labor Day Weekend. Each region receives 1 theatre for every 4 theatres who participate. This year, our region had 8 entries, so therefore, 2 were selected to attend the state festival and 1 alternate was also selected.
OCTA sends 3 adjudicators, who watch the excerpts, give feedback immediately after the presentation, and then meet to decide who/what gets awards and to pick the shows that will excerpt. The adjudicators this year were Jerry Zimmerman, Pat Potter, and Kathy Hyland. Each group will also receive written feedback from these people so they can see what each had to say about the presentation. These awards are then presented at the banquet on Saturday night. Also in attendance from OCTA were Jesse Bernal, President; Joe Barton, OCTAFest chair; Jane Mancini; and Aara Wise, volunteer Administrative Assistant. Thanks also to our regional OCTA board members, Peggy Kenney, Carissa Sloan, Dan Maloney, Wayne Kirsch, Ray Lebowski and to our OCTA regional representatives Kevin Noll, Denise Schnieders, John Masterson, and Amy Sullivan. Your dedication to the Southwest Region is greatly appreciated.
Below is the list of OCTA awards for the shows that excerpted over the weekend.
Congratulations to all the winners and to the theatres who were selected to attend OCTAFest in September.
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At the banquet on Saturday night, the winners of Orchid awards were announced. There were a total of 998 nominations in the various categories and 503 Orchid awards. To see the whole list of shows and the breakdown of the various nominations in each category, go to our Orchid Awards page.
Below is the breakdown of the awards by group:
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Besides Orchid awards, there were several other awards given Saturday night.
A split the pot raffle was conducted throughout the weekend. The total raised was $1,440 and congratulations goes to Lisa Hunt who was the recipient of $720.
In order to recognize those people from various theatres who go lend their talents to the group. These awards are called the Rising Star awards.
This year, the following were recognized:
Jake Hart - Mariemont Players
Sophie Grant - TDW
James Major - Acting Up
Molly Sexton - CMT
Stephanie Mackris - Loveland
Katie Werner - Mason Community Players
Parker Culp - CenterStage Players
Dan Maloney, ACT president, presented the ACT President's Award. This year, two people received this award: Mary Stone, who as Publicity Chair worked on updating the website, and Joy Sharp who handled pre-registration. Congratulations to both of them.
As mentioned above, the OCTA Spirit of Community Theatre awards were presented to Elaine Volker from The Drama Workshop and Amanda Emmons Shumate from Footlighters. This award is given by OCTA on recommendation of their theatre for contributions to not only their theatre, but also to the entire theatre community.
The most revered awards were also presented Saturday night. The Art Rouse Award is given to a person who has shown exceptional commitment and dedication to community theatre. The Mario Pitocco Award is given to a person who has shown continuous service in creative technical theater. The Roger Grooms Award is given to a person who has demonstrated dedication to raising the artistic quality through active teaching and/or through sustained excellence in directing, acting, choreography, musical or vocal direction. Each theatre has the opportunity to nominate someone who they think exemplifies those qualities. From those nominees, a committee made up of the past year's winners as well as a members selected from a revolving list of all theatres in ACT make the final selection of who will receive the honor.
The 2022 recipients are Bunny Arszman, Elaine Michael and Danny Davies, respectively.
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There were eight scholarships given to deserving college students who are pursuing a bachelor's degree in the performing arts. These students audition for the scholarships and are selected by a 5 member panel of adjudicators based on long standing criteria.
The Dee Wacksman Memorial Scholarship-Lizzie K. Sundstorm- Xavier University- $2,500
ACT of Greater Cincinnati, Inc. Scholarship-Claire M. Northcut-Wright State University- $1,000
The Robert and Helen Booth Family Memorial Scholarship-Julia N. Brosas-Wright State University-$1,000
The Dorothy and Frank Weber Memorial Scholarship-Evan N. Kupersmith-UC-CCM- $1,000
The Carol Mills Memorial Scholarship-Taylor Greny-Wright State University- $800
The Susann Q. Royalty Performing Arts Scholarship-Chloe O. Esmeier-Northern Kentucky University- $500
The Freshman Performing Arts Scholarship- Emma Massey- Wright State University- $350
The Freshman Performing Arts Scholarship-Wyatt H. Toloczko-UC-CCM- $350
Congratulations to all of the recipients.
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Unfortunately, in the years that our theatres were dark, our theatre community experienced the death of some very talented people. They will be greatly missed.
2019-2020
Jonathan Boerner, John Marwede, Steve Suddendorf, Muriel Foster, Jack Williams, Russ D. McGee
2020-2021
Sandra Kraft, Darnell "Daray Lorez" Hunter, David Spitzfaden, John Haskamp, Irma Lewis
2021-2022
Jim Hall, Aaron Losey (Tyrese Rainz), Daniel Brewer, Don Haas, Mick McLean, Ed Spencer, Jerry Viox, Judith Howe Sarakatsannis, Carol Kirby, Bob Elkins, Connie Hatfield, Bonnie Schanz
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Now, on to the ACT board. Due to the pandemic, the board voted to have the current officers remain in their positions for another year. That meant that those people who were already in their final year on the board (each is elected to a 3 year term) served 4 years. Thank you all for going above and beyond the call.
The 2021-2022 ACT board
Dan Maloney-President
Amanda Emmons Shumate-1st Vice President
Fred Hunt-2nd Vice President
Kate Coyne-Chailland-Recording Secretary
Amelia Burke-Treasurer
Dennis Murphy-Awards
Melissa M. Smith-Scholarships
Laureen Catlin-Long Range Judging
Joy Sharp-Convention Pre-Registration Chair
Linda Roll-Librarian, Historian, Newsletter Editor
Mary Stone-Publicity
John Wesseling-Membership
At the May meeting, the membership elected the 2022-2023 board
Fred Hunt-President
Cathy Lutts-1st Vice President
Mark Culp-2nd Vice President
Kate Coyne-Chailland-Recording Secretary
Amy Waldfogle-Awards
Melissa M. Smith-Scholarships
TBD-Long Range Judging
TBD-Convention Pre-Registration Chair
Linda Roll-Librarian, Historian, Newsletter Editor
Mary Stone-Publicity
John Wesseling-Membership
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The 2023 OCTAFest will be held in Cincinnati with Peggy Kenney and Robert Weidle as Co-Conference chairs. They are looking for volunteers to be on the planning committee.
Also, at the OCTAFest this September, the theme is a circus theme and each region will be responsible for setting up 3 Midway games. Peggy Kenney is asking for prize donations for winners of our 3 games, such as a bottle of wine, a gift card, etc. So she is reaching out to the theatre groups and individuals to supply these prizes.
If you have not gone to the ACT website and looked at the changes that have been made, go take a look. It has been a while since any significant changes were made to the website. What you will see is due to the work that is being done by Mary Stone. She has put in many hours and lots of work making the improvements you see on the site. Thank you Mary for all of your work. It is greatly appreciated.
One last thing, over the years, some ACT history was unfortunately destroyed. If you or your group have any photos that you would be willing to scan and send, it would be greatly appreciated. These will be added to the website and stored in the history notes.
Also, ACT will soon be celebrating 70 years of existence in a few years, so please start sending any new items about your group, or if you are a new group to ACT, send your information on how you were formed. Send to llroll69@hotmail.com.
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Thank you if you have made it to the end of this newsletter. Let's all hope that we never have to go through what we have in the past few years, but know that if we do, we will survive.
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Any errors, mistakes, or omissions are not intentional.
Thanks to all of you for being a part of Greater Cincinnati theatre.
