This weekend, Marquette's Department of Performing Arts participated in the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival at Illinois State University.

The cast of "Dead Man Walking" performed the story of Sister Helen Prejean's experience with an inmate on death row. The Marquette performance was one of 12 shows at the festival, to which regional schools were invited.

Performing the show on a new stage with little time to prepare made for some hectic moments.

"It's a really huge challenge moving our whole set and show over to another stage," said stage manager Katie Kaczynski, a College of Communication senior.

The students had four hours to build the set and one hour to take it down.

The week before the show, along with practicing the play, they practiced putting the set up and taking it down in the allotted time.

At the festival, they had to wake up at 5 a.m. Saturday morning for their 9 a.m. show, which was followed by a noon performance.

But any stress caused by the frantic setup was quickly relieved by the performance.

"It was received very well at the festival," Kaczynski said. "We got two standing ovations and a lot of people were really moved."

The theater seated 525, and according to Kaczynski, was almost filled to capacity, mostly with other theater students.

After the show, many of the audience members were in tears.

"I had people coming up to me later on that day and telling me how moved they were," said Mike Miro, a College of Arts & Sciences junior who played the inmate on death row.

Students were running on a few hours of sleep but said the lack of sleep was difficult only during intermissions. Once on stage, the actors fed off the energy of the audience.

"It is an amazing place to do theater because of the energy in the room. The students are all here and they want to support you so much," Miro said.

The play tackled a heavy social issue in its focus on the death penalty, making the performance even more powerful for the audience as well as the actors.

"This is probably, hands-down, the most powerful play I've been a part of," said Sarah Winiarski, the College of Communication junior who played Sister Helen. "It's not just fluff. There's a real message behind it."

Winiarski, Miro and College of Communication junior Nate Miller were selected to compete for the Irene Ryan Foundation Acting Scholarship.

There were three rounds of competition, but none of the students advanced beyond the first round.

This article appeared in The Marquette Tribune on Jan. 18 2005.