Rochester Community Players' Stephanie Roosa Wins Outstanding Leading Actress at The Acting Irish International Theatre Festival

Stephanie Roosa was awarded "Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role" honors at the 2012 Acting Irish InterNational Theatre Festival (AIITF) in Dublin, Ireland, May 20, 2012, for her performance as "Josie" in the Rochester Community Players' Irish Players production of A Moon for the Misbegotten by Eugene O'Neill. The festival was held at the Axis Theatre, Ballymun, Dublin; six community theater companies from the United States, Canada and Ireland participated in this year's festival.

The Irish Players of Rochester is a program of the Rochester Community Players established in 1997 to stage plays by Irish and Irish-American Playwrights. RCP's Irish Players have participated in every AIITF since 2003, and have at least one one of the six awards every year since then, with one exception.

The production of A Moon for the Misbegotten was staged at MuCCC Theatre, 142 Atlantic Avenue, in April, before being presented at the AIITF. The production was presented Saturday evening, May 19, as the closing performance of this year's festival. By tradition, the company which has won the "Outstanding Production" award at the previous year's festival present the closing show at the next festival. RCP's Irish Players production of Dublin Carol was the 2011 winner at the Calgary festival, and so RCP had the honor of closing this year's event.

This was Roosa's first appearance with RCP's Irish Players. She is the head of Out of Pocket Productions and is the newly elected Vice President of TheatreROCS. She directed RCP's Shakespeare Players production of Othello at the Highland Park Bowl last summer.

The Acting Irish InterNational Theatre festival is an association of ten community theatre programs in the United States, canada and Ireland, which presents a week-long festival of Irish plays every May. RCP hosted AIITF in Rochester in 2008.

More Articles by This Author...