Jacob Swain was one of two Irene Ryan Acting Scholarship finalists in the region to advance to the national competition in April in Washington DC as part of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF). The festival involves over 18,000 students from more than 600 colleges and universities nationwide in eight regions.
Over the past twenty-five years, theatre students from BYU have won the prestigious national Irene Ryan competition seven times, with additional national honors in playwriting and design. This year, the Mainstage Theatre Production of the Microburst Theatre Festival, a collection of seven student-written 10-minute plays, also won three national awards: Distinguished Production of a New Work, Distinguished Director of a New Work, and Distinguished Achievement in Performance and Ensemble Work.