Semonelli reaches prestigious regional finals

Merrimack College's Michael Semonelli '17, of Wilmington, Mass., is a theatre major who has made the regional finals in the prestigious Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival Region 1 competition at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury, Conn. and will compete Saturday Jan. 30 for a chance to go to the national competition. Semonelli started in a pool of 230 actors before making it to the semi-finals with 35 others and then the finals, said the Rev. Richard Piatt, OSA.

January 29, 2016
By: Office of Communications

“He’s made it to the final 16,” Piatt said.

Semonelli will work with reading partner Lissette Schum ’16, of Westchester, N.Y., a sports medicine major minoring in theatre, during the finals. He’ll perform a scene from “Your Mother’s Butt,” by Alan Ball and “Frankenstein” by Nick Dear before performing a monologue from John Steinbeck’s, “Of Mice and Men.”

“The KCACF is huge,” Piatt said from Connecticut. “I think this is the 48th festival and over 18,000 college students from around the country participae in various art forms of acting, directing, set designing, etcetera.

The winner of the national finals will receive a scholarship to study for a master’s degree of fine arts in acting.

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