Building Opportunity through Leadership and Development | BOLD

The Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival is dedicated to nurturing artistry across all theater disciplines, guided by merit, achievement, and a spirit of collaboration.

We recognize that a broad range of experiences and perspectives strengthens our organization, enriches the educational mission, and prepares the next generation of creative leaders in American theater.

We affirm our commitment to programming, policies, and practices that uphold excellence in theater education and artistic development for student participants, teaching artists, and organizational leadership at both regional and national levels.

We encourage the growth of confident and capable student leaders who meet the challenges of the field with creativity, resilience, and integrity. We expect discourse and pedagogy that fosters positive change in the representation of all communities, both onstage and off. We reject practices that perpetuate harmful stereotypes or cultural appropriation.

We expect production respondents to engage with respect, avoid discriminatory comments, and embrace the wide spectrum of artistic choices found on college campuses across the country.

We support collegial exploration of new ideas, grounded in respect for long-held artistic practices and the communicated intentions of the playwright.

Through these commitments, we affirm our role in advancing the highest standards of theater education, creative expression, and leadership—honoring the complexity of our collective historical legacies, engaging fully with the present, and reimagining a future for the American theater that reflects and represents us all.