Messiah Homepage News Archive

The Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival recently honored the work of several students and an alumnus from Messiah College’s Theatre Department. Jim Knipple, from the Class of 2000, will receive the festival’s Certificate of Merit for his direction of “Fertile Ground,” in recognition of the play’s exceptional elements of production. “Fertile Ground: Stories from Messiah’s First 100 Years,” is an original blackbox production written by alumna Deborah Harbin DeGeorge ’03, to commemorate the College’s Centennial year. The play was performed on campus to sold-out audiences on Oct. 8-16.

Current students Sarah Burgess, Kimberley Lambertson, Ashley James, and Gabriella Saramago are also nominated through the festival for the Irene Ryan Acting Scholarship. The main focus of this nomination and subsequent competition is to celebrate the nation’s finest student actors and the craft that enables them to create compelling and truthful characterizations. These students will compete at the regional level in January 2010. Lambertson and Saramago were nominated for their roles in “The Spitfire Grill” under the direction of Edward Cohn and Elaine Henderson. Burgess and James were nominated for their roles in “Fertile Ground.”

The Mendelssohn Piano Trio, an ensemble-in-residence at Messiah College, recently signed a five-year contract with Centaur Records to record a complete cycle of piano trios by Haydn. A significant and prestigious recording project, the Mendelssohn Trio will become only the second trio in the U.S. to have recorded such a work in its entirety.

Messiah’s Harrisburg Institute, in partnership with the Messiah College Department of Visual Arts’ Student Art League, will be on ongoing participant in the City of Harrisburg’s “First Friday Gallery Walk,” when from 6-9 p.m. on the first Friday of every month, local city galleries open their doors for free public art showings in various downtown locations. The Harrisburg Institute, located at 28 Dewberry St., opened its first exhibit on Sept. 4. New monthly exhibits of Messiah student and alumni art will run through the end of the academic year. The Harrisburg Institute’s inaugural exhibit features the work of Messiah College student artists Ammon Perry, Dana Scannapieco, Kelly Sefter, and Eli Smith.

“How My Light Is Spent,” a one-act play written by Danielle Sahm `09, was one of four winners chosen in a Drury University playwriting competition.

Sahm’s play was selected from among nearly 300 entries.

Theatre major Josh Luther `11 will play the role of Peter Van Daan in Open Stage Harrisburg’s production of “Diary of Anne Frank.”

The play will be performed for area high school students and will have a public showing on March 14 at 8 p.m.

Dorea Schmidt `09 will perform as Leila in the symphony’s February concert production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Iolanthe.”

Schmidt, a theatre major, is a voice student of Damian Savarino, senior lecturer in music, and was referred to Stuart Malina, artistic director of the Harrisburg Symphony, by Linda Tedford, director of choral activities and artist-in-residence, at Messiah.

Read a recent profile of Schmidt.