SCT wins State Competition, advances to regional festival in Atlanta

By BRIAN HAWKINS
Starkville Daily News

• January 2007
  
  When it came to competing at the annual Mississippi Theatre Association festival, Starkville Community Theatre performers have done well the past few years, but top show honors have eluded them.
  
  But that was not the case in this year’s festival — held last weekend at the Gertrude Ford Performing Arts Center in Oxford — when SCT’s production of “Smoke on the Mountain” won seven of the 10 awards in the competition, including the Warren McDaniel Award for Best Production (best show).
  
  The best production win qualifies SCT to represent Mississippi in the Southeast Theatre Conference (SETC) regional competition in Atlanta in March. Should the show win in the regional competition, the performers would advance to the national American Association of Community Theatre festival.
  
  “I am so thrilled for this cast and this crew because they worked so hard and so much to achieve this,” said SCT President Pattye Archer, who also directed “Smoke on the Mountain” and took home the award for best director.
  
  Archer has directed multiple SCT productions, including “Inspecting Carol,” “The Queen of Bingo” and all the summer musical revues since 1999. “Smoke on the Mountain” is a special production for SCT, she said.
  
  “The reason we selected this show for competition is because our audiences loved it and we felt the festival would, too. The adjudicators gave all seven of our actors great reviews and said that they were believable as a family, which is very true, because at SCT, we are a family,” Archer said.
  
  “Smoke on the Mountain” is set in a rural West Virginia Baptist church during the Great Depression and features the return of a gospel-singing family to the performing circuit. Each family member and the church’s pastor are featured in telling stories related to their faith, often with very humorous results.
  
  In addition to the directing award for Archer and the best production award, other SCT awards included:
  • Best Actor — Kary Rogers, for his role as Dennis Sanders. He is a two-year SCT veteran.
  • Best Actress — Madeline Golden, for her role as Verna Sanders. A veteran of more than 50 SCT productions, Golden had previously won the best supporting actress award for “Going to See the Elephant” in 1998 and has won multiple All-Star Cast honors.
  • Best Supporting Actor — Bruce Lesley, for his role as Pastor Mervin Oglethorpe. Lesley, who served as musical director for this past summer’s SCT musical revue, made his on-stage debut at SCT last season in “Smoke on the Mountain.”
  • All-Star Cast — Marcus Vowell, for his role as Stanley Sanders. Another SCT veteran, Vowell most recently performed the lead role in “The Lion in Winter” in the 2005-2006 season and in the 2006 summer musical revue.
  • Overall Technical Excellence — This award also netted SCT a $100 gift certificate from Mainstage Theatre Lighting.
  
  Other cast members in “Smoke on the Mountain” included Dr. Paul Rupp as Burl Sanders, Molly Watkins as Denise Sanders, Krista Vowell as June Sanders. All have previous on-stage experience at SCT.
  
  Rupp said SCT’s win for best production was especially meaningful since it came as a complete surprise. SCT last won the best production award in 1987 — 20 years ago.
  “This really was a surprise for all of us,” Ruff said.
  
  “We went up there with the idea that we would have a great time. Winning was icing on the cake.”
  
  Archer noted that SCT includes money in its annual budget to send a production to the MTA festival, but not to the regional competition. Some fund-raising may be conducted to help defray the costs of taking “Smoke on the Mountain” to SETC.
  
  “We will likely be calling on the community to help us in getting the show to SETC,” Archer said.
  
  For more information about SCT, visit the organization’s website at http://www.sct-online.org.