For Immediate Release

Contact: Pat Samson 508-541-1668

 

 

 

                Franklin, MA – January 25, 2010 – The Dean College Theatre Performance of “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” has been selected to have its production presented at the New England Regional Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF) Saturday, January 30 at 3:30 p.m. at the Johnson Theatre, University of New Hampshire in Durham, NH.

                Dean’s production is one of six being evaluated by the National Selection Team of the Kennedy Center Festival competition. The plays will be adjudicated for possible invitation to the national festival in Washington, D.C. in April.   Nine Dean students and their scene partners have been nominated for acting awards; and four Dean Students representing the College have been invited as Arts Management Interns. In addition, two staff members will be presenting dance classes at the festival.

This production was directed by Jim Beauregard with support from Dean’s design, music and dance faculty and staff.

                “The selection team noted the exceptional costumes, engaging sets, tight direction, marvelous choreography,  professionally taut orchestrated music and vocals,” said the College’s Dean of the School of the Arts, Kelly Morgan.

                “Dean’s production of ‘The Book of Days,’ directed by faculty member and playwrite Craig Handel was selected as one of three Regional Alternates,” said Dean Morgan. “This means that out of nine productions honored by KCACTF from the pool of entries from Maine, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Connecticut, two of those nine are from Dean College.”

                The musical Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is based on a popular 1998 film by the same title. The story focuses on two fraudsters, Lawrence Jamison, a cultivated and suave gentleman who cons rich ladies out of their money, and Freddy Benson, a small time American thief who manipulates women into giving him money by telling made up stories about his sick grandmother. One Day the two meet and realize that the small French town they live in isn't big enough to support two scammers.