BOLD Programming and Opportunities
Hello Region 2! My name is Anjalee Deshpande Hutchinson and I am your BOLD chair. Jessica López Barkl is our BOLD Vice Chair and we partner with Cassie King our region Chair. B.O.L.D stands for Building Opportunity Through Leadership & Development and is an essential component of KCACTF in every region. Our jobs, in short, are to make sure the festival is a welcoming and inviting place for everyone here.
We recognize that a broad range of experiences and perspectives strengthens our organization, enriches the educational mission, and prepares the next generation of creative leaders in American theater.
We affirm our commitment to programming, policies, and practices that uphold excellence in theater education and artistic development for student participants, teaching artists, and organizational leadership at both regional and national levels.
We encourage the growth of confident and capable student leaders who meet the challenges of the field with creativity, resilience, and integrity. We expect discourse and pedagogy that fosters positive change in the representation of all communities, both onstage and off. We reject practices that perpetuate harmful stereotypes or cultural appropriation.
We expect production respondents to engage with respect, avoid discriminatory comments, and embrace the wide spectrum of artistic choices found on college campuses across the country.
We support collegial exploration of new ideas, grounded in respect for long-held artistic practices and the communicated intentions of the playwright.
Through these commitments, we affirm our role in advancing the highest standards of theater education, creative expression, and leadership—honoring the complexity of our collective historical legacies, engaging fully with the present, and reimagining a future for the American theater that reflects and represents us all.
Although it is impossible to guarantee a conflict-free space, we will work hard to recognize and respond to harm as quickly as we can, working to support our most vulnerable members for the ultimate benefit of everyone in our community. This includes at festivals and in the production responses we offer at each of our participating schools. I invite you to reach out to us at any time should our festival programming or production responses not center the needs of the students, honor each of our lived experiences or stay open and receptive to the variety of voices that are a part of our work. We are all artists here and seek to learn from each other with a spirit of authenticity and grace. Let’s make this an opportunity to grow for each and every one of us.
Events and Opportunities:
Students and Faculty! Join BOLD Leadership and Planning! Help us Celebrate and Uplift our Community!
Some of the work we do before and after festivals includes planning and assessing the impacts of our work and how we can do better. If you are interested in joining this effort – we are seeking both Students and Faculty who are interested in DEI work in theatre and Academia to be a part of our Student and Faculty of Color Advisory Board. This Board will meet via zoom a few times a year via zoom and once or twice at festival. In addition, Board members will be asked to host and or participate in our exciting BOLD events annually. See below for more information on events. And if you are interested in joining our board, please contact Anjalee Deshpande Hutchinson at adn001@bucknell.edu. Thank you for your consideration!
Affinity Lunches
Affinity lunches: The Students and Faculty of Color Luncheon and the LGBTQIA+ Student & Faculty Luncheon. Sign up at the festival for these lunches free to students and faculty! Join us for a little Community and Connection!
Talent Show
BOLD will be sponsoring an Open Mic Talent Show with a Talent Show open to anyone interested in showcasing their performance talents! Sign up at the festival to perform – or if you’d like to help plan this and other events, please consider joining the S&FAB. See above for more details!
Panels and/or Workshops!
BOLD would love to sponsor & support faculty AND student panels, for folks interested in dialogues about issues relevant to our community.
- Strategies for Success for Students and Faculty
- A Positionality Statement Workshop
- Introduction to Deaf Theatre
- Speaking on Access and Self Liberating Spaces
- Challenges and Opportunities for Undergraduate Artists
- Community, Dialogue and Discussion for Theatre Artists
- Marginalized Theatre Practitioners Roundtable (DTM panel)
Please let us know if you are interested in proposing a panel! We would be happy to brainstorm and support you as you consider what you’d like to share at the festival.
BOLD Resources
List of BIPOC Plays and Creatives
PMF DEI Committee’s 2020
Anti-Racism Series Syllabus