CCM Drama Holds Annual Senior Showcase and Dolly Awards on March 18, 2016

CCM Drama’s class of 2016.

CCM’s Department of Drama presents its 2016 Senior Showcase at 2 and 7 p.m. on Friday, March 18, in Patricia Corbett Theater. The annual DOLLY Awards ceremony follows the 7 p.m. showcase performance and includes the recognition of an outstanding alumnus of the program. These events are free and open to the public. Reservations are not required.

The showcase performance will consist of a variety of scenes by graduating seniors in CCM’s Drama program, demonstrating the depth and breadth of the acting skills they have honed during their undergraduate training at CCM. The Senior Showcase will be the first presentation of a performance that the students will be taking on the road to exhibit their talent in New York and Los Angeles. You can learn more about the Drama Class of 2016 by visiting ccm.uc.edu/theatre/drama/seniorshowcase-classof2016.

Hosted by Professor Richard E. Hess, CCM’s A.B., Dolly, Ralph and Julia Cohen Chair of Dramatic Performance, the annual CCM Drama DOLLY Awards recognize the outstanding achievements and performances of students in the Department of Drama. Awards are given for Excellence in Performance and Excellence in Ensemble Performance from the 2015-16 CCM Drama season, which included the productions TRANSMIGRATION 2015, You’re Welcome: A Cycle of Bad Plays, Pentecost, The Hunchback of Seville and Ah, Wilderness!.

CCM Drama alumnus Michael Littig in Africa in 2011.

The highlight of the Dolly Awards ceremony will be the presentation of the 2016 Julia Winter Cohen Career Excellence Award to a graduate of CCM Drama. This year’s honoree is alumnus Michael Littig (BFA Drama, 2005).

Littig has worked as an actor, teaching artist and theatre maker. As an actor, his US credits include NYSF/Public Theater, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey, Portland Stage Company, Los Angeles Theater Center, Z Space, Hangar Theater, the Utah Shakespeare Festival and the Hippodrome Theatre as a resident company member.

Internationally, Littig has performed in A Dreamplay (United Arab Emirates), Juárez: A Documentary Mythology (Mexico/UAE/Lebanon), HEARTPIECE (Mongolia) and Hamlet/Ur Hamlet (UAE) as an associate artist with New York/Abu Dhabi-based Theater Mitu. In addition, Littig has diligently continued various global research initiatives towards a continuous development and articulation of Theater Mitu’s training methodology of “Whole Theater.”

Littig has served on faculty at the NYU Graduate Actor Training Program, Shakespeare Society, Stella Adler Conservatory and is a co-founder of the Patrick Page Studio in New York. His awards and recognition include a NEA Arts Works grant, a NEFA Touring grant and a Fulbright Fellowship to examine the relationship between a shaman and an actor in Mongolia.

Littig is the founder of the Great Globe Foundation and the Dadaab Theater Project. The work of the Great Globe Foundation has facilitated artistic collaborations with the United Nations High Council for Refugees, US State Department, Save the Children and FilmAid International. At present time, the Dadaab Theater Project continues in Africa in collaboration with Real Life Poets, a poetry exchange program between Alabama students and refugees living in Kenya.

Performance Times
2 and 7 p.m. Friday, March 18

Location
Patricia Corbett Theater, CCM Village
University of Cincinnati

Admission Details
Admission to the CCM Drama Senior Showcase and DOLLY Awards Ceremony is FREE and open to the general public. Reservations are not required.

Parking and Directions
Parking is available in the CCM Garage (located at the base of Corry Boulevard off Jefferson Avenue) and additional garages throughout the UC campus. Please visit uc.edu/parking for more information on parking rates.

For detailed maps and directions, please visit uc.edu/visitors. Additional parking is available off-campus at the new U Square complex on Calhoun Street and other neighboring lots.

For directions to CCM Village, visit ccm.uc.edu/about/directions.

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CCM Season Presenting Sponsor and Musical Theatre Program Sponsor: The Otto M. Budig Family Foundation

Community Partner: ArtsWave

CCM Alumnus Dominic Bogart Featured in Sundance Film Festival Favorite ‘The Birth of a Nation’

Alumnus Dominic Bogart, recipient of the 2012 Julia Winter Cohen Career Excellence Award.

After receiving accolades at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival for his lead role in the feature film I Am Not A Hipster, alumnus Dominic Bogart (BFA Drama, 2000) returned to the festival this month for the world premiere of The Birth of a Nation.

After the film received a standing ovation at its premiere, Variety reports that The Birth of Nation landed the biggest deal in the history of the Sundance Film Festival: a $17.5 million payday from Fox Searchlight for global rights!

Bogart plays Hank Fowler in this biopic about enslaved preacher-turned-revolt leader Nat Turner, appearing on screen alongside Nate Parker (who also wrote, directed and produced the film) and Armie Hammer.

This is the latest success for Bogart, who appeared in no less than five feature films this year. He also recently appeared in Sympathy, Said the Shark, which won the audience award for best feature at the Portland Film Festival and enjoyed a multi-city theatrical run.

His other recent and upcoming feature film releases include the rodeo western Mahjong and the West, the SyFy Channel’s science fiction thrill 400 Days and the atmospheric thriller The Ghost and the Whale.

A native of Piqua, Ohio, Bogart was the 2012 recipient of CCM’s Julia Winter Cohen Career Excellence Award.

You can learn more about CCM Drama’s actors at work by visiting ccm.uc.edu/theatre/drama/actorsatwork.

CCM Drama Holds Annual Senior Showcase and Dolly Awards on March 27

CCM’s Department of Drama presents its annual Senior Showcase at 2 and 7 p.m. on Friday, March 27, in UC’s Patricia Corbett Theater. The 13th annual DOLLY Awards Ceremony follows the 7 p.m. showcase performance. These events are free and open to the public. Reservations are not required.

CCM’s Class of 2015 in Drama.

The showcase performance will consist of a variety of scenes by graduating seniors in CCM’s Drama program, demonstrating the depth and breadth of the acting skills they have honed during their undergraduate training at CCM. The Senior Showcase will be the first presentation of a performance that the students will be taking on the road to exhibit their talent in New York and Los Angeles in April. You can learn more about the Drama Class of 2015 by visiting ccm.uc.edu/theatre/drama/seniorshowcase.

Hosted by Richard E. Hess, CCM’s A.B., Dolly, Ralph and Julia Cohen Chair of Dramatic Performance, the Annual CCM Drama DOLLY Awards recognize outstanding achievement and performance by students in the Department of Drama. Awards are given for Excellence in Performance and Excellence in Ensemble Performance from the 2014-15 CCM Drama season, which included the productions TRANSMIGRATION 2014, Living Dead in Denmark, Macbeth, Speech and Debate and The Heidi Chronicles.

The evening will also include tributes to CCM faculty members Diane Kvapil and R. Terrell Finney, both of whom will retire at the end of the semester. A faculty member since 1977, Professor Kvapil received the Acclaim Award for Outstanding Theatre Educator in 2011. A faculty member since 1983, Professor Finney currently serves as CCM’s Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Director of Graduate Studies. He is also currently serving as president of the National Association of Schools of Theatre.

CCM alumnus Keith Pillow.

The highlight of the ceremony will be the presentation of the 2015 Julia Winter Cohen Career Excellence Award to a graduate of CCM Drama. This year’s honoree is Keith Pillow, CCM Drama class of 1989. An accomplished film and television actor, Pillow has had recurring roles on Judging Amy, The Shield, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Awkward and Pretty Little Liars. He has made guest appearances on The Mentalist, Glee, The Goldbergs, Law & Order L.A., TheCloser, Nip/Tuck, Hot in Cleveland, 24, CSI, Cold Case, The Young and the Restless, General Hospital and The Bold and the Beautiful, to name but a few. A classically trained singer and actor, Pillow is also very much at home on the stage. His credits include the Broadway touring company of Show Boat, the role of Pontius Pilate in the European tour of Jesus Christ Superstar, the role of Hud in the European tour of Hair and the role of Jim in the national tour of Big River. He was also featured at the prestigious Theater des Westens in Berlin as Jacob in La Cage aux Folles, and in productions of My Fair Lady, Anything Goes and Evita. In addition to his television and stage credits, Pillow has appeared in over 20 national and regional commercials and numerous films.

About Diane Kvapil

CCM Associate Professor of Drama Diane Kvapil.

Diane L. Kvapil studied at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., and the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City with Sanford Meisner. She joined CCM’s faculty in 1977 and currently serves as Associate Professor of Drama. Kvapil has directed several notable productions during her time at CCM, including Trojan Woman (with original music by Richard Oberacker), Our Town, Three Sisters (which won the Acclaim Award for Outstanding Ensemble) and Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia. In 2011, she received the Acclaim Award for Outstanding Theatre Educator.

Featured in numerous regional and national touring productions as well as WNET and NBC telecasts, Kvapil has also performed with National Players in Japan, Korea, Canada, North Africa and Bermuda. She is in demand for on-camera commercial work as well as voice overs for radio and television. As a writer, Kvapil has had a teleplay produced for NBC’s Young People’s Specials. She studied with American actor and acting teacher Eric Morris during the summer of 1987.

About R. Terrell Finney

CCM Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, Director of Graduate Studies and Professor of Drama Terrell Finney.

R. Terrell Finney, Jr. is the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Director of Graduate Studies and a Professor of Drama at CCM. A faculty member since 1983, his recent directing credits include Charley’s Aunt, Floyd Collins, Dancing at Lughnasa, The Diviners, Myths and Hymns, As You Like It,Lend Me A Tenor, Chekhov in Yalta, Blithe Spirit and the world premiere of Clever Dick for CCM/Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati, among others. He has also served as a faculty member at Birmingham-Southern College and the Cincinnati School for Creative and Performing Arts.

Finney is a former artistic director of the Showboat Majestic where selected productions included Crimes of the Heart and They’re Playing Our Song. He also directed The Importance of Being Earnest for the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival. Acting credits include Nurse Nanny Fanny in ETC’s Snow White, Hysterium in the Hot Summer Nights production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Argon in CCM’sThe Imaginary Invalid. He has also served as narrator for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

A graduate of the MFA directing program at Boston University, he spent the summers of 1992 and 1995 in training programs with the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain. A past president of the Ohio Theatre Alliance, Finney previously served as the head of the Division of Opera, Musical Theatere, Drama and Arts Administration at CCM and acted as producer of CCM’s acclaimed Hot Summer Nights from 1998 to 2002. A member of Actors’ Equity Association, he is currently serving as President of the National Association of Schools of Theatre and frequently serves as a consultant to theatre programs across the United States.

Although Finney is retiring this spring, he will make a return to CCM’s Mainstage Series to direct Eugene O’Neill’s Ah, Wilderness! in February of 2016. You can learn more about this production, and the rest of CCM’s upcoming season, by visiting ccm.uc.edu/about/villagenews/notations-ovations/mainstage-series-2015-2016.

Performance Times
2 & 7 p.m., Friday, March 27

Location
Patricia Corbett Theater, CCM Village
University of Cincinnati

Admission Details
Admission to the CCM Drama Senior Showcase and DOLLY Awards Ceremony is FREE and open to the general public. Reservations are not required.

Parking and Directions
Parking is available in the CCM Garage (located at the base of Corry Boulevard off Jefferson Avenue) and additional garages throughout the UC campus. Please visit uc.edu/parking for more information on parking rates.

For detailed maps and directions, please visit uc.edu/visitors. Additional parking is available off-campus at the new U Square complex on Calhoun Street and other neighboring lots.

For directions to CCM Village, visit ccm.uc.edu/about/directions.
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CCM Season Presenting Sponsor and Musical Theatre Program Sponsor: The Otto M. Budig Family Foundation

Community Partner: ArtsWave