Three theatre students were honored with national awards for their work, from playwriting to set design, in 2003-2004.

• Katherina Hantke, a master of fine arts student in scenography, won the prestigious Barbizon Award for Theatrical Design Excellence in set design at the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival in Washington, D.C. Hantke, an international student originally from Chile, was selected from among eight regions representing the U.S. and Puerto Rico, and won for the Our Town and subUrbia sets she designed for the 2003-2004 Herberger Mainstage Season. She was awarded a $500 honorarium and an all-expenses-paid trip to New York to visit the designers at Barbizon Inc., a theatrical lighting company.
• Kristyn Benedyk, a master of fine arts student in playwriting, was one of two ASU students to win the PEO (Providing Educational Opportunities for Women) Scholar Award. Benedyk received a one-time gift of $10,000 to help fund professional development activities that include attending a Kennedy Center Playwriting Intensive and the World Interplay Playwrights Conference in Australia next year. She was one of 80 winners chosen from thousands of applicants.
• Another successful Herberger College playwriting graduate student, James E. Garcia, was commissioned by ASU Public Events to write a new play about Hispanic World War II veterans. The play will be produced as part of ASU Public Events’ 2005 Beyond Broadway season. It is the first time that Public Events has commissioned a college student to write a work for its performance season.

Students Megan Alrutz and Whitney Tucker each were honored with a Herberger College of Fine Arts Award for Research and Creative Activity.

Alrutz, who received her doctorate in theatre for youth in May 2004, was cited for her keen intellect, artistic abilities and social conscience. Alrutz’s dissertation documented the use of dramatic activities in a 5th-grade science classroom to make complex, abstract science concepts, such as matter and energy, vivid and memorable to students. Her work promises to revolutionize the way science is taught in elementary and middle schools. Alrutz also was deeply involved in the study, Place: Vision & Voice, which involved high school students from the Gila River Indian Community in the creation of digital storytelling pieces about their identities, families and community.

Tucker, who graduated in May 2004 with a BFA degree in dance education, was cited for her vision, creativity and sensitivity as a dancer, teacher and mentor. In addition to co-choreographing the first-ever undergraduate dance concert, she proved to be an accomplished teacher in several dance education programs offered by the college. Tucker also created and facilitated a program for women recovering from lives of prostitution who lived at Dignity House, a transitional living facility. Using movement-based expressive arts and other healing modalities, the program reinforced positive ideals and encouraged sensitivity to the benefits of movement and a healthy physical presence.

Dance Arizona Repertory Theater, the community partnership dance company of the Department of Dance, received the ASU President’s Medal for Social Embeddedness for its long-term, collaborative and creative partnerships with culturally diverse and underserved after-school programs. DART has partnerships with Sylvestre S. Herrera School for the Fine Arts, Boys and Girls Clubs of the East Valley, the Thomas J. Pappas School for Migrant Youth, and the Peoria School District. At each site, youth are engaged in collaborative artistic workshops with local and national guest artists to challenge them in their approach to educational and practical concepts.