In late December 2025, the American College Theater Festival announced its decision to suspend its decades-long affiliation with the Kennedy Center, citing a misalignment in values as the primary reason for the decision. The change came just days after the Kennedy Center’s board of trustees voted to rename the facility after both former President John F. Kennedy and current President Donald Trump.
Only a few weeks after this decision, Amy Budd, associate professor of theater, led a group of four Goshen College students to ACTF’s Region 3 festival in Madison, Wisconsin. Budd said that the affiliation change mostly impacted ACTF’s funding and resourcing, particularly of its national festival, which typically takes place at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. each year.“With this suspension, we have lost significant resources and are in the process of … figuring out exactly how to proceed,” Budd said.
She also added, however, that the possibility of this change had already been on ACTF’s radar and, as a result, mitigating strategies and protocols had already been put into place.
“A remarkable number of things were ready to go in advance and didn’t have to change,” Budd said.
ACTF ensured that its eight regional conferences would proceed as planned in the new year. Therefore, just like in past years, the five-day-long festival GC students attended last week consisted of a variety of workshops, competitions and performances geared toward both the artistic and technical sides of theater.
“Each student has a really different experience and … gets to build their own path through the festival,” said Budd. “They’re actively auditioning, interviewing, presenting or training at any given moment.”
Maille Goodwill, a sophomore social work and sign language interpreting major, and Teo Kingsley, a junior theater major, both auditioned for the Irene Ryan Acting Scholarship, for which Budd acts as a co-coordinator. Goodwill and Kingsley both performed a monologue and a short scene with an acting partner. Though neither advanced past the first round, they found the experience nonetheless beneficial.
“The competition … was so fun,” Goodwill said. “I learned a lot.”
One of the highlights of the festival was when Eddie Baldwin, a senior technical theater design major, received the McGraw-Hill Recognition in Design and Technology for the props they created for the fall mainstage production of Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel.
This year was the first time Baldwin attended the festival, and before going, they said they were nervous about presenting their work in a professional setting for the first time, which made the award even more meaningful.
“I don’t often feel proud of myself about my prop work, so it was nice to feel that,” they said. “One of my favorite parts was talking about my work and what the design meant to me.”
Students and faculty alike did not feel that the actual experience of the festival was harmed in any significant way by the suspension of the Kennedy Center affiliation or the political discourse surrounding it.
“It didn’t really feel that much different from last year to this year,” Kingsley said. “There wasn’t a tangible difference not having the Kennedy Center involved.”
Budd agreed. “It felt as bustling and vibrant as ever,” she said. She reported that the festival had around 930 registrants this year, a post-pandemic record.
Beyond the numbers, participants walked away from ACTF with other tangible benefits as well, often resulting from the community and connection created and supplied by the festival.
“Theater is often a pretty niche thing, so it’s just kind of fun to be in this space for a couple of days … having the chance to be around people with similar interests and just, you know, ‘talk shop’ with them,” Kingsley said.
For Baldwin, the connections they were able to make as a result of the festival reminded them of their passion and love for theater.
“ACTF, to me, was going and meeting people who make their life out of it,” they said. “It was like, wow, they did this with this degree that I’m getting — I’m so excited for my life now.”
