SETC’s Community Theatre Festival — a multi-day performance festival held each year during the annual SETC Convention — features community theatres representing the 10 southeastern states.
2020 Community Theatre Festival
The 2020 Community Theatre Festival will take place as part of the 71st annual SETC Convention in Louisville, KY. If your community theatre group is interested in participating, check with your state organization to learn how to get started at the state level.
Recap: 2019 Community Theatre Festival
The 2019 Community Theatre Festival was held Feb. 28 – March 2, 2019 at Austin-East Magnet High School as part of SETC’s 70th annual convention in Knoxville, TN. Performances were free and open to the public. Donations were accepted at the door to support Austin-East High School’s performing arts wing.
Congratulations to our 2019 winners!
- Best Production: Romeo and Juliet – Mill Town Players, SC
- Best Production: The Diviners – Wetumpka Depot Players, AL
- Best Actor: Greg Vander Wal, Of Mice and Men – The Actor’s Charitable Theatre, AL
- Best Actress: Lola Bond, Mud – Actors Warehouse, FL
Questions?
For more information, please contact:
Lyle Tate
Community Theatre Festival Chair
Phone: 662-312-3610
Email Lyle Tate
Tom Booth
Community Theatre Division Chair
Phone: 662-844-1935
Email Tom Booth
April J’C Marshall
SETC Professional Theatre Services
Phone: 336-272-3645
Email April
- Alabama: The Actor’s Charitable Theatre, Of Mice and Men
- Alabama: Wetumpka Depot Players, The Diviners
- Florida: Actors’ Warehouse, Inc., Mud
- Georgia: Dalton Little Theatre, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
- Georgia: Lafayette Society for the Performing Arts, John Lennon & Me
- Kentucky: Paramount Players, Forever Plaid
- Kentucky: Theatre Workshop of Owensboro, Morte for 2
- Mississippi: Fondren Theatre Workshop, I and You
- Mississippi: The Center Players Community Theatre, Tea for Three
- South Carolina: Guerrilla Shakespeare Theatre Company, Never Swim Alone
- South Carolina: Mill Town Players, Romeo and Juliet
- Tennessee: The Backstage Series of the Cookeville Performing Arts Center, Scott and Hem
2019 Adjudicators
James Alexander Bond
James Alexander Bond holds a BFA in Theatre Management from Ithaca College and an MFA in Directing from the University of California at Davis. From New York to England and regionally across America, James has directed more than 200 productions, including over half of Shakespeare’s canon.
T.K. Lee
T.K. Lee’s award-winning work crosses multiple genres: both on stage and off. At times a playwright, and other times a poet, he is at all times firmly planted in the southern tradition of gothic storytelling. His work has appeared in national publications including The Louisville Review, Carolina Quarterly and Deep South Magazine, to name a few. Internationally, his short fiction has been translated into French and Italian, and, in 2018, selections of his poetry, short fiction and playwriting were anthologized for the first time, through two collections published in the U.K.
Lee has also won accolades for his work in theatre, including here at SETC as well as AACTFest. His award-winning credits include turns taken as director (for 2009’s SETC winner Catfish Moon and other honors at AACTFest Tacoma), as actor (for 2017’s winner Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike and other nominations at AACTFest Rochester), and as playwright (for 2018’s SETC winner Paper Thin).
After receiving his MFA in 2015 from Spalding University in Louisville, KY, he immediately joined the faculty in the nascent MFA in Creative Writing program at Mississippi University for Women, teaching both undergraduate literature and creative writing, as well as playwriting and poetry. His first collection of poetry, entitled To Square a Circle, debuted this past October at the Eudora Welty Symposium and has garnered high critical praise for Lee’s “uncanny wit; impeccable sense of pacing” which is ushering in “a dynamic new voice to southern poetry.”
On a personal note, he has three cats (Peej, Beeze and YinBin) because he was a nice guy that one time and fed them…and now they won’t leave. In fact, they’ve been not leaving for the last six years, four years, and going on three months, respectively.
Amy Wratchford
Amy Wratchford is the Managing Director of the American Shakespeare Center. As the company’s chief administrative and financial officer, Amy oversees finance, marketing, development, and other business management functions for the ASC. During her tenure the ASC’s budget has grown from $2.4M in 2010 to $4.0M in 2019. Before joining the ASC, Amy served as Managing Director of Synchronicity Theatre in Atlanta. Previously, she worked in a number of capacities in theatre in New York City including producer, director, and actor. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Acting from the Tisch School of the Arts of New York University and a master’s in fine arts degree in Performing Arts Management from Brooklyn College. Amy has lectured on finance, budgeting, and nonprofit governance for Mary Baldwin University’s MFA program in Shakespeare in Performance and others.
Testimonials
“As director of a new theatre company, I’ve found the SETC Community Theatre Festival to be constructive, well-run and a terrific way to network and grow. Actors for Children Theatre has had an enjoyable experience the past two years and we hope to be back!”
– Sarah Diamond Burroway, Actors for Children Theatre
