ON CUE
OCTA CONFERENCE Sept. 2022
The electronic newsletter of the Association of Community Theatres of
Greater Cincinnati
Linda Roll, editor
llroll69@hotmail.com
What a great weekend of theatre. It was the first time since Covid struck that this has been held and as usual, it was full of excerpts, workshops, food, drink, games and reconnecting with theatre friends from around the state.
The OCTA Conference took place Labor Day weekend at the Cherry Valley Hotel in Newark, Ohio.
The weekend kicked off on Friday night with a carnival. Each region set up carnival games and encouraged people to play. Peggy Kenney was responsible for the Southwest games. There was a beanbag toss into basketball style hoops and a ping pong ball toss. People received entry coupons upon successful completion of each game. These were placed into a jar and winners were drawn every half hour. Peggy extends thanks to everyone who donated prizes to the booth and a special thank you to Kent Smith who trucked the equipment to Newark. Kevin Noll and his wife brought a cotton candy machine, which was a great hit.
There were also ring toss games, a balloon dart game, a cornhole toss game, a fish bowl toss game and a beanbag toss game. There was also popcorn from a popcorn machine.
A fun time was had by all.
There were 13 excerpts scheduled Saturday and Sunday.
All of the Southwest excerpts were scheduled on Saturday. Below is a list of excerpts and the awards each received. Congratulations to all the theatres and awards.
Tri-County Players THE WOMEN OF LOCKERBIE
- CINDY MILLER – MERIT IN ACTING AS OLIVE ALLISON
- SHARON ROSE TYAHUR – MERIT IN ACTING AS HATTIE
- DARREN LEE – MERIT IN ACTING AS BILL LIVINGSTON
The Drama Workshop BRIGHT STAR
- DENNIS MURPHY – EXCELLENCE IN DIRECTING
- JASON COX – EXCELLENCE IN SOUND DESIGN
- DENNIS MURPHY – EXCELLENCE IN COSTUMES
- LINDA ABBOTT – EXCELLENCE IN ORCHESTRA
- MARISA BANES – EXCELLENCE IN ORCHESTRA
- PAUL BREHM – EXCELLENCE IN ORCHESTRA
- CHRIS TAYLOR – EXCELLENCE IN ORCHESTRA
- CAST OF BRIGHT STAR – EXCELLENCE IN ENSEMBLE
INNOVAtheatre youth show FREAKY FRIDAY
- MAX FOX – MERIT IN MUSICAL PERFORMANCE AS KATHERINE BLAKE
- CAST OF FREAKY FRIDAY – MERIT IN ENSEMBLE
- CAST OF FREAKY FRIDAY – MERIT IN SUCCESSFUL PROMOTION IN POSITIVE BODY IMAGE
Mariemont Players THE OUTSIDER
- CAST OF THE OUTSIDER – EXCELLENCE IN ENSEMBLE
- DOUGLAS BERLON – EXCELLENCE IN DIRECTING
There were a lot of workshops scheduled over Saturday and Sunday as well. Topics were varied and covered all areas of theatre from the technical, to acting, directing and administration.
Dee Anne Bryll was the workshop leader to train new responders. All four of the people who signed up to take this workshop passed with flying colors.
Congratulations to Forest and Pamela Fairley from Southwest who are new OCTA responders.
There were lots of other rewards presented over the weekend.
Travel Award
INNOVATHEATRE – ART ROUSE TRAVEL AWARD-36 people travelling 147 miles
FOOTLIGHTERS INC – Something Rotten
- Ryan Oalker – EXCELLENCE IN SET DESIGN
- Faye Crawford – OUTSTANDING IN COSTUME DESIGN
- Carolyn Martinez, Faye Crawford,Crew – OUTSTANDING IN OVERALL COSTUME DESIGN
CINCINNATI MUSIC THEATRE – Pricilla Queen of the Desert
- Elaine Michael, Cathy Ross & Crew – EXCELLENCE IN INDIVIDUAL COSTUME DESIGN
Web Design – ACT Cincinnati
- MARY STONE – OUTSTANDING IN GRAPHIC DESIGN
- BELLKISS ABRIL-ROMAN – OUTSTANDING IN GRAPHIC DESIGN
- MARY STONE – EXCELLENCE IN NAVIGATION
- BELLKISS ABRIL-ROMAN – EXCELLENCE IN NAVIGATION
- MARY STONE – OUTSTANDING IN DIGITAL MEDIA USE
- BELLKISS ABRIL-ROMAN – OUTSTANDING IN DIGITAL MEDIA USE
- MARY STONE – EXCELLENCE IN REGIONAL REPRESENTATION
- BELLKISS ABRIL-ROMAN – EXCELLENCE IN REGIONAL REPRESENTATION
Newsletter Awards
Footlighters, Inc – Libretto
- ERICA BEIMESCHE, EDITOR – EXCELLENCE IN SPECIAL INFORMATION: “CURTAIN UP!,” “HAVE A SEAT,” “A NOTE FROM OUR PRESIDENT,” AND “BIRTHDAYS.”
- ERICA BEIMESCHE, EDITOR – EXCELLENCE IN OCTA NEWS AND USE OF GRAPHICS/PICTURES
- ERICA BEIMESCHE, EDITOR – EXCELLENCE IN LAYOUT, WRITING, AND OVERALL QUALITY
The Village Players
- PEGGY KENNEY & SHARON SHELTON, EDITORS – EXCELLENCE IN USE OF GRAPHICS/PICTURES AND LAYOUT
- PEGGY KENNEY & SHARON SHELTON, EDITORS – EXCELLENCE IN OCTA NEWS
- PEGGY KENNEY & SHARON SHELTON, EDITORS – EXCELLENCE IN SPECIAL INFORMATIOM: “SPOTLIGHT” AND “VINTAGE STORIES
This year, Dave Meyers from Sunset Players was inducted into the OCTA Hall of Fame. Dave’s family as well as John Wesseling were on hand to accept the award. Anyone who knew or worked with Dave knows that this award was well deserved.
The President has the option to present an award to someone who has gone above and beyond in performing duties assigned to him/her. This year, the recipient was John Masterson from Southwest. John has worked on the treasury committee for a number of years and has manned the Silent Auction room at the OCTA conference as well as the OCTA table at our regional. Congratulation John.
AACT has an award that is presented for service to community theatre.
This year the Robert E. Gord Superior Volunteer Award was presented to Ron and Freida Houck for their 25 plus years of work and dedication to the Footlighters, Inc. Congratulations to both of them.
At the delegates luncheon on Saturday, nominations for board positions were presented. Judy Berrens was voted in for a 2 year term on the OCTA board. She will join Wayne Kirsch, Carissa Slone, Denise Schneider, Ray Lebowski, Robert Weidle and Peggy Kenney. At the board meeting on Monday morning, Wayne Kirsch was elected President and Carissa Sloan was elected 2nd Vice President -heading MMPR. Congratulations to both of them.
The Regional Representatives for the coming year are Kevin Noll, John Masterson and Linda Roll. Please, if you are interested in serving our region, talk to Kevin and let him know.
The final event of the weekend was the introduction of the theme for the 2023 conference which will be held in the Southwest at the Holiday Inn Hotel in Eastgate. Peggy Kenney and Robert Weidle are the co-chairs for the event. 2023 will be OCTA’s 70th anniversary.
The theme for the conference is: OCTA 2023 Platinum Jubilee-A Million Stars.
Please let Peggy or Robert know if you are interested in working on the committee. Let’s all pull together to make this as outstanding as all of the conferences held in Cincinnati.
Any errors, mistakes or omissions are not intentional.
Thanks to all of you for being a part of Greater Cincinnati theatre.
It is with great sorrow that we share the heartbreaking news that long-time Dayton Theatre Guild member, and long-time Dayton Theatre Community veteren, Fred Blumenthal passed away Monday, November 21, 2022.
From The Story Collective 
BRIGHT STAR
-From Human Race Theatre Company
Behind the Curtain Cincinnati 