Bearden theater grads bring down final curtain
Filed Under Kitchen Curtain | Posted on August 7, 2008
The second summer in a row, freshly graduated Bearden theater rats have self-financed a play as a farewell to high school drama days before heading off to college.
There seems to be a fondness for Victorian literary classics at Bearden. Last year’s play was a stage adaptation of the Louisa May Alcott novel “Little Women.” This year’s offering is the Oscar Wilde comedy “The Importance of Being Earnest.”
Kent and Stout are, respectively, Gwendolyn Fairfax and Cecily Cardew, the play’s ingenues who are engaged to marry the male leads as the final curtain falls. Ledford plays the spinster governess Miss Prism the deus ex machina who delivers the final surprise in this tale of false indentities and thus clears the path to the couples’ happiness.
Stout, Ledford and Kent all studied advanced acting and musical theater during their years at Bearden. Ledford was a cast member of last summer’s “Little Women,” which was produced by Bearden grads Caroline Blasius and Natalie McReynolds, who were to be performance majors at college.
Stout leaves in mid-August for Loyola University in New Orleans, where she will major in acting. Kent will attend Middle Tennessee State University this fall, where she will major in advertising and minor in theater. Ledford will attend UT to study nursing, but says she will continue to “do as much theater as possible.”
The advanced classes are for juniors and seniors. Bearden also offers a class in stage technology. The high school has two drama teachers. “We have kids getting into really good (colleges),” Dickson says of Bearden’s drama grads.
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