Face Off Theatre's Monologue Competition Cash-Prize Winners Announced

By Face Off Theatre Company

KALAMAZOO, Mich. – The votes are in! Face Off Theatre Company is happy to announce the winners of the two $100 prizes in our first Monologue Competition! They were chosen by the general public casting votes online.
 
The winner of the Emerging Actor category is Khadijah Brown, with a monologue from the film “Hidden Figures” (screenplay by Theodore Melfi and Allison Schroeder, based on the book “Hidden Figures” by Margot Lee Shetterly.) Click here to watch her performance.

The winner of the Established Actor category is Delanti Hall, with a monologue from “Detroit '67” by Dominique Morisseau, a Pulitzer-Prize-winning playwright from Detroit. Click here to watch his performance.

“On behalf of the company members of Face Off Theatre, we want to say THANK YOU to everyone who competed, voted, donated and supported!” says Company Member Ynika Yuag, who chaired the competition. “And a big thank-you to the anonymous donor who provided our cash prizes.”
 
Face Off Theatre loved seeing everyone's talents and we hope to see more of all of you very soon! Watch for this event next year. We plan to make it yearly!

As promised, feedback from the Monologue Competition panel members will be sent out individually to each performer via email by Monday, October 25.
 
About the winners
 
Both Khadijah Brown and Delanti Hall are familiar faces to Face Off Theatre goers.
 
Brown has been in six of our productions. She most recently had a leading role in our May show, Vickie G. Hampton’s “I Am Grace,” about race, class and forgiveness in a small town. The Joliet, Ill. native discovered her love for acting in Benton Harbor, Mich., where she was raised. She came to Kalamazoo in 2017 to lean deeper into her passion for theater.
 
Hall is completing his bachelor’s in fine arts in acting at Western Michigan University. The Detroit native’s Face Off Theatre debut was in July of this year in a lead role with Dominique Morisseau’s “Pipeline,” a play about the school-to-prison pipeline. He returned in August for Kermit Frazier’s “Smoldering Fires,” about a neighborhood coping with crime.
 
Working behind-the-scenes
 
We could not have done this amazing event without the hard work of Face Off Theatre’s Monologue Competition Subcommittee, whose members are Earlene McMichael (Brand Marketing & Social Media Manager), Betty Lenzy (Volunteer Manager) and Ynika Yuag (Directing/Dramaturgy/Workshops). Yuag is committee chair.

We wish also to thank our panelists, who took the time to provide feedback to all of our contestants.
 
The panel included: Ynika Yuag, a Kalamazoo College theatre arts and psychology graduate; Laura Livingstone-McNelis, company manager for Festival Playhouse at Kalamazoo College; Actress/Playwright/Entrepreneur Angela Anderson, who is a Face Off board member; Face Off Co-Founder/Artistic Director Marissa Harrington; and Kalamazoo Actress Sandy Davis, a musical theatre performance graduate of Western Michigan University.
 
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About Face Off Theatre Company
Face Off Theatre Company was founded in 2015 in Kalamazoo by six African-American women with theater and playwriting degrees from Western Michigan University. We are devoted to thought-provoking Black theater and the development of playwrights, actors and directors of color, drawing audiences from throughout Southwest Michigan to our performances. 
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Photo credits: Khadijah Brown (Tanisha Lynn Pyron Creative Photography); Delanti Hall (courtesy photo)