Kent Overshown, Class 2006

"Kent Overshown, University of Michigan Class of 2010, is named the winner of the AEA/Alan Eisenberg Award Scholarship. He is the fourth graduating student to receive the award, which was created by former AEA Executive Director Alan Eisenberg, an alumnus of the school. The award, in the amount of $5,000, is given to a graduating senior in the University's Musical Theater Program."

"Since graduating OSA in 2006 I have attended the University of Michigan where I will be graduating with a BFA in Musical Theatre in May of 2010. In addition to playing various roles such as Tom Collins in RENT, Horse in THE FULL MONTY, and Arkadi Cheidze in Bertolt Brecht's THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE at the University, I have also had the opportunity to work at the St. Louis MUNY (The oldest and largest outdoor theatre in the country, seating close to 11,000 patrons) for the past 3 summers while working with names such as Beth Leavel, Georgia Engel, Eric Kunze, Jeff McCarthy, Robert Westenberg, Daniel Reichard, Will Chase, Lisa Howard, Ken Page, Simone, and Kate Baldwin, and directors like Marc Bruni and Daniel Goldstein, and noted choreographers such as Liza Gennaro and Darren Lee. This past summer I had the opportunity to audition for the recently closed revival of RAGTIME on Broadway and made it through callbacks for the understudy of the leading role of Coalhouse Walker Jr. Though I did not make the Broadway show, I will have the opportunity to fulfill the dream of playing that role at the University of Michigan this spring in our production of RAGTIME (http://www.music.umich.edu/performances_events/productions/09-10/ragtime.htm)! I am now preparing for my Senior Showcase, in which my class of 17 students fly out to New York City to perform in front of a host of noted casting directors and agents, in the hopes either procuring a job on Broadway or booking an agent"