Perk Players win five top awards at Mississippi Theatre Association festival

The Perk Players of Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College’s Perkinston Campus won five top awards in the Theatre for Youth division at the Mississippi Theatre Association’s annual festival held Feb. 14-17 in Tupelo. For the production “Mission Mississippi,” the Perk Players won Best Overall Theatrical Production, Best Overall Acting Ensemble, two All-Star Cast Awards (Trae Stigletts and Viola Ramsey), and Best Actress Award (Ramsey). Best Ensemble award winners include, kneeling from left, Trae Stigletts and Hanna Kittrell, and, standing from left, Christine Lopez, Viola Ramsey and Dena Hawkins.

Cast members Hanna Kittrell and Viola Ramsey in the award-winning production “Mission Mississippi.” (Photos courtesy of David Hawkins and J.C. Howell and the Mississippi Theatre Association)

The Perk Players of Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College’s Perkinston Campus won five top awards in the Theatre for Youth division at the Mississippi Theatre Association’s annual festival held Jan. 14-17 in Tupelo. The festival included more than 550 theatre enthusiasts, nine community theatres, eight high schools and six Theatre for Youth productions.

For the production “Mission Mississippi,” a play written by Gulf Coast theatre/speech instructor and Perk Players director Daisha Walker, the Perk Players won Best Overall Theatrical Production, Best Overall Acting Ensemble (Trae Stigletts, Hanna Kittrell, Christine Lopez, Viola Ramsey and Dena Hawkins), two All-Star Cast Awards (Stigletts and Ramsey), and Best Actress Award (Ramsey).

“This is the third year in a row that the Perk Players have won top awards at the festival,” said Walker, playwright for the productions performed at the festival in the past three years, including “The Dreaming Tree” in 2008 and “Tales of the Singing River” in 2009. “We are thrilled with the comments we received from the adjudicators. They lead professional acting troupes, so their comments inspire and encourage the actors.”

During the fall 2009 semester, the Perk Players toured with “Mission Mississippi,” performing in 39 shows for more than 8,000 children. “We rotate casts during the tour –one cast performs on Tuesdays and one on Thursdays– but we still perform enough to get to know each other and develop a good rhythm in the play. It definitely helps us during the festival, because we are so comfortable in our roles and with each other that it’s seamless,” said Stigletts, a sophomore business and marketing major who had roles in the Perk Players’ 2009 productions of “Grease” and “The Imaginary Invalid.” He will also star in this spring’s production of “The Yellow Boat.” He plans to attend The University of Southern Mississippi in the fall.

“Performing for children is the best, because they’ll let you know if you aren’t doing a good job,” said Ramsey, a sophomore theatre major. “Cast members have to stay on their toes to keep children entertained. A lot of what we do includes audience participation, which makes some things more improvisational. You really don’t know from one group of children to the next how they will respond so you have to react quickly.” Ramsey, also a singer, starred in the Perk Players’ production of “The Boys Next Door” and plans to continue her education in musical theatre.

The Mississippi Theatre Association (MTA) has held its current name since the early 1970s but dates back to the mid-1950s as the Mississippi Little Theatre Association. It serves as the sanctioning organization for the festival, and in recent years, it has included workshops for the colleges, high schools and community theatre divisions of MTA.