Jennifer Beck, a member of the Denison University class of 2015, from Olmsted Falls, Ohio, received the Frederic K. W. Curry Theatre Award. This annual award was endowed in 1988 by the Curry family in memory of the 1954 graduate who played leading roles in Denison theatre productions while majoring in sociology. The recipient is a graduating senior who, like Curry, has made a significant contribution to theatre at Denison while majoring in another discipline.
Beck majored in cinema and had minors in theatre and education. She played the leading role of Kelle in the recent production of “I Am Jonathan,” an ensemble-created new work, which originated under the guidance of Available Light Theatre Company of Columbus. Earlier, she served on the costume crew for “Little Shop of Horrors,” appeared in a recent One-Act Play Festival, and she directed a scene for the 2013 benefit production of “The Vagina Monologues.”
Beck spent the spring semester of 2014 at the National Theater Institute in Waterford, Conn., where her one-act play was selected for a staged reading during their annual playwrights week. Summer work has included improv and Shakespearean acting classes at the Beck Center in Lakewood, Ohio.
As a cinema major, Beck made several short films, serving as director, producer and cinematographer. She was a production assistant on the first Denison student feature-length film, “Deliria,” which was accepted in the NewFilmmakers Film Festival in New York City.
To recognize her outstanding scholarship and work in the arts, the Fine Arts faculty awarded her the Jeanne Vail Scholarship. Beck was employed as a Cinema House Teaching Assistant and a Theatre Box Office Assistant.