The Groton School

The Campbell Performing Arts Center

Designed by architect Graham Gund, the performing arts center on the campus of Groton School provides stunning, comfortable, and intimate spaces for student, amateur and professional performances. The facility boasts state of the art equipment in two theaters, and ample opportunities for performers, technicians, directors, and playwrights to make full use of the facilities. The Asen Theatre, a proscenium space that seats 466 includes a trap and orchestra pit level, a full 65 foot fly loft. The McBaine Studio Theater, a black box space accommodates 120. Additionally, The Marion D. Campbell Performing Arts Center includes a fully equipped scene shop, a costume shop, Equity level dressing rooms and a computerized box office. The entire space is air-conditioned and climate controlled.

Directions to Groton School

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Adjudicator Biographies

Kate Snodgrass (Playwright) is the Artistic Director of Boston Playwrights' Theatre and of the Elliot Norton Award-winning Boston Theater Marathon (which she also co-founded). She runs the MFA Playwriting Program at Boston University in the renowned Graduate Creative Writing Department. Kate is a former Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival Chair of the National Playwriting Program, a former Vice President of StageSource, Inc., and a member of Actors' Equity, A.F.T.R.A., and the Dramatists' Guild.  She is the 2001 recipient of the prestigious “Theatre Hero” Award from StageSource in Boston and is a Playwriting Fellow with the Huntington Theatre Company.  The Glider premiered at Boston Playwrights' Theatre and was nominated for the National American Critics Association's "Steinberg New Play Award.”  The play won the 2005 IRNE award for "Best New Play." Snodgrass is the author of the Actors' Theatre of Louisville's Heideman Award-winning and much-anthologized play Haiku. The play has been performed around the world and translated into German, Portuguese, and Gaelic; the film “Haiku” premiered at the 1995 Boston Film Festival. Snodgrass's play Observatory Conditions won the 1999 IRNE Award for "Best New Play," the 1998 Provincetown Theatre Company's Playwriting Award, and the "Best Play Award" at the 2000 Southeast Theatre Conference.  Snodgrass was a member of the former Circle Repertory Theatre Lab.  Her short plays L’Air Des Alpes; Que Sera, Sera; Critics’ Circle; and Walden-October 18 have been published/anthologized by Cedar Press, Dramatic Publishing Company, Bakers Plays, and Night Owl Press, respectively, and have been performed across the country.  As an actor, Snodgrass studied at Kansas University, Wichita State University, The London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art (LAMDA), and in NYC with disciples of Michael Chekhov and Sanford Meisner.  She has appeared at Lincoln Center, in regional theatres, and on national television.  Snodgrass has taught at Wellesley College, Brandeis University, MIT, Boston College, Suffolk University, Lesley University, and the American Repertory Theatre (A.R.T.) Institute for Advanced Theatre Training at Harvard, among others.  A Virginia Center for Creative Arts Fellow, she holds two BAs from Kansas University and Wichita State University, respectively, and a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing from Boston University.  She was recognized for “Outstanding Achievement in Theater Arts Education” by North Shore Music Theatre, 2007, and as “Theatre Educator of the Year” by the New England Theatre Conference in 2008.

Kevin Gardner is a longtime actor, director, and teacher of theatre. A member ofActors’ Equity Association, he has appeared at many theatres across the New England region, including the Huntington TheatreCompany, the American Stage Festival, and the Camden (ME) Shakespeare Company. He has directed scores of productions for schools, colleges, and professional companies, and has taught acting and other theatre subjects at the New Hampton School, the NH Institute of Art, and St. Paul’s School, where he currently teaches the major course Shakespeare for Performance in its summer Advanced Studies Program. Kevin has also been a regular Guest Director at Plymouth State University, and is a performance evaluator for the NH State Council on the Arts. He has adjudicated state and regional theatre festivals throughout the northeast for more than twenty years, as well as the 2005 national AACT finals in Kalamazoo, MI.

In addition to his theatre work, Kevin is a broadcaster, writer, and tradesman. Since 1985, he has written and produced theatre criticism, feature material and special programming for NH Public Radio. New Hampshire Magazine named him the state’s Best Theatre Critic in 2008. His award-winning feature reporting has also appeared on the Christian Science Monitor broadcast network and on National Public Radio, and in 2004 he co-hosted the New England edition of the nationally-syndicated radio series StoryLines America, focusing on regional literature.  He is the author of The Granite Kiss: Traditions and Techniques of Building New England Stone Walls, and has also published poetry, songs, essays, and reviews.

Benny Sato Ambush is the distinguished Producing Director-In-Residence at Emerson Stage, the producing arm of the Department of Performing Arts, Emerson College, Boston, MA.  He is a professional SDC stage director, producer, former Artistic Director, educator, consultant and published commentator with national and international experience.

Prior artistic leadership experience includes: Producing Director - Oakland (CA) Ensemble Theatre, Associate Artistic Director - San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theater, Acting Artistic Director - Providence, RI’s Rites and Reason Theatre Company, and Producing Artistic Director - Richmond, VA‘s TheatreVirginia.

He has directed at many regional theaters across the U.S. - among them Oregon Shakespeare Festival - Portland, Arizona Theatre Company, South Coast Rep, Old Globe Theatre, Ford's Theatre, American Conservatory Theater and Geva Theatre. He toured the former Soviet Union and Kenya via the United States Information Agency and adjudicated theater productions on U.S. Army, Air Force and NATO military bases in Germany, Belgium, Italy and Turkey.

He has taught and directed at numerous colleges and universities throughout the U.S. - among them, NYU Graduate Acting Program, North Carolina School of the Arts, Brown University and Colorado College. He is the former Director of the Institute for Teledramtic Arts and Technology at California State University, Monterey Bay.

He has served on numerous regional and national boards - including Theatre Communications Group (TCG) - and is active nationally in the advocacy of cultural equity, non-traditional casting and pluralism in the American theater. Benny also served as an Adjudicator for the 2009 New England Regional Festival held at Merrimack College in Andover.

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Resources, FAQs, and Forms

• Festival 2010 application (word document)
• FAQs
• Lighting Handbook
• Lighting Footprint - Groton School
• Lighting Que sheet
• Lighting Sample Que sheet
• Sound Handbook
• Sound Que Sheet
• Sound Sample Que Sheet
• A Stage Form
• B Lighting Form
• C Sound Form
• D Footprint
• E Contact Form
• F Actor Affadavit
• G Warranty of Company
• Group Stage Manager's Technical Handbook

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