Northwestern theatre student's play selected for festival

“Mysterious Neighbor,” an original 10-minute play by Northwestern College senior Caitlin Porter, has been selected for a reading at the Region Five Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF) Jan. 17–23.

Porter, a theatre major from Lake Mills, Iowa, wrote the short play during the fall semester after a Northwestern chapel worship service on the Genesis flood. “I was sitting there thinking: I wonder what those around Noah thought of his antics,” Porter said. So she wrote a scene in which three nosy actors muse about their strange neighbor’s monstrous construction project.

“Mysterious Neighbor” is one of just six 10-minute productions, chosen from a pool of 81, to be presented at the regional festival. Two productions from those entries will be considered for invitation to the national KCACTF in Washington, D.C., in April.

The 2016 KCACTF festival is being hosted by Normandale Community College in Bloomington, Minn., in collaboration with the Ames Center for the Arts. In addition to Porter, other Northwestern theatre students will attend and participate in acting, technical design and other competitions.