Actor Bill Pullman will appear at IUP on Thursday, January 14, 2010, for the Region II Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival.
A film star, stage actor, director, producer, and teacher, Pullman will present the keynote address for the festival at 12:30 p.m. in Fisher Auditorium, IUP Performing Arts Center.
Pullman's talk is open and free to the community and festival registrants, but tickets are required, as space is limited.
Tickets will be available starting at 10:30 a.m. the day of the event in the Performing Arts Center lobby. Up to three hundred seats will be made available to the general public.
After making his silver screen debut in Ruthless People in 1986, Pullman went on to star in hit films including While You Were Sleeping (1995), opposite Sandra Bullock, and Independence Day (1996), in which he played the president.
Hosted by the IUP Department of Theater and Dance, the festival takes place January 12–16. It is expected to draw up to a thousand people, bringing students and educators from college and university theater programs representing eight mid-Atlantic states and the District of Columbia.
The festival honors excellence of overall production and offers student artists recognition through awards and scholarships in playwriting, acting, criticism, directing, and design.
An IUP production, A Year with Frog and Toad, has been selected for inclusion in the festival. It is the seventh IUP production in eight years selected for the regional competition, which accepted only nine of about fifty productions entered for consideration. Region II includes more than eighty participating colleges and universities.
In addition to Pullman's presentation, performances of five festival productions will be open to the community January 13–16 in Fisher Auditorium. Find a complete listing of these performances under Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival.
For more information, visit the theater festival website or contact the Lively Arts at IUP at 724-357-2547 or lively-arts@iup.edu.