Cyclone Spotlight: Jeff White

By Julia Ferrell
Ames247 Staff Writer

Jeff White, senior in performing arts, was awarded a Distinguished Performance by an Actor award by the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival for his role in last year’s ISU Theatre production of “Six Characters”. Along with White, Madison Welterlen and Brittny Rebhuhn received the same award in the Actress category. The production received more awards for Distinguished Performance and Production Ensembles, Outstanding Lighting Design, Outstanding Director of a Play and Outstanding Production of a Play.

Q: How long have you been acting?
A: I’ve been acting since I was in I think first grade. I was in a play called “Food Wars” and I was Dark Chocolate. It was a combination of “Star Wars” and nutritional values. I did stuff in through school and in high school, and I knew I didn’t want to do anything else in college.

Q: What got you into theater?
A: When I was a kid, I was all into fantasy and sci-fi and all these other worlds. And theater is a way to engage in the magic of storytelling. I don’t think normal life is boring, but I think your imaginative life is infinite and theater is a way to step into that. It’s also a way to hang out with people when you’re a lonely kid.

Q: Do you have any favorite shows or memories from shows?
A: “Six Characters” was awesome, “Chekhov Short Stories” this year was fun. My sophomore year, we did a show called “The Pillowman” that I really liked. I’ve had a good time in everything I’ve done here, which I think is really neat to be able to say. I’ve never had a show where I was like ‘This is a terrible experience’. I’ve had fun in every show I’ve done here, which I’m really glad I’m able to say that.

Q: What does this KCACTF award mean for you?
A: The coolest thing about the whole process wasn’t getting the award, the cool thing was getting to do the show again. The certificate doesn’t necessarily enable us to do more theater, but getting another chance to perform it was really cool. If in some way it leads us to do more plays, then that would be cool.

Q: What are you future plans after graduation?
A: Keep doing plays wherever I can, wherever anybody will let me. There’s really cool people here, and it would be sweet if we could keep working together, because I like them a lot. But if not, then I’ll try and find some other people that I like a lot. I hope that it’s these people though.