‘Mad World’ Musical Wins 7 National Awards

“Mad World” has won seven national awards as part of a Kennedy Center-sponsored college theater festival, a feat that follows the musical’s strong showing in the festival’s regional competition in January and its debut at Ball State in September 2015.

The national awards for the cast, crew and designers are:

* Outstanding production of a new or devised work

* Distinguished production of a musical

* Distinguished director of a musical (Eva Patton)

* Distinguished achievement in lighting design (Stuart Wilson and Mickie Marie)

* Distinguished achievement by an actor in a musical (John Bane)

* Distinguished director of a new or devised work (Patton)

* Distinguished choreography or movement direction (Marc Devine)

Los Angeles artists Cristian Guerrero, Chandler Patton and Steven Schmidt wrote the musical about Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), creator of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking-Glass,” and his obsession with heroine Alice Liddell.

“Mad World” debuted on campus in September, featuring Ball State students as cast, designers and crew; Patton directed, with musical direction by Johnna Tavianini.

The college theater festival’s national awards ceremony took place April 16 at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington.

Patton said before the national awards announcement that “Mad World” shows the department’s entrepreneurial efforts to stage and promote new works.

“If we can provide writers a safe haven to develop their work, while also giving our students the extraordinary experience of working on a new play and having a real part in its developmental process — well, entrepreneurial learning doesn’t get any better than that.”

“Mad World” won Ball State’s first Discovery New Musical Theatre Festival in 2014 and earned strong reviews as one of five featured productions at January’s regional Kennedy Center festival in Milwaukee.