Gwynnethe Glickman and Zaida Buzan perform a scene from “Romeo and Juliet” for the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival.

Northern Essex Community College student Gwynnethe Glickman, a Liberal Arts major from Newbury, MA, recently made it to finals of The Region 1 Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival.

Competing with 180 theater majors from private and public colleges and universities from across New England and Northeast New York, Glickman was one of 16 students selected to compete in the finals which were held virtually on January 29.

On Wednesday, March 2 at 11 am, the public is invited to a performance of a scene from the last round of the competition, Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” which Glickman will perform with partner Zaida Buzan of Brookfield, MA, a 2020 Liberal Arts graduate. The performance will be held in the theater on the third floor of the Spurk Building on the college’s Haverhill Campus, 100 Elliott St.

Northern Essex Professor Brianne Beatrice, who directed the college’s fall theater production, says Glickman was selected to compete in the competition based on her “tour de force performance” as Sugar in “Tiny Beautiful Things”, a play based on a book by best-selling author Cheryl Strayed and adapted for the stage by actor, director, producer, and screenwriter Nia Vardalos.  A Kennedy Center representative saw the performance and nominated Glickman for the acting competition.

Gwynnethe Glickman in NECC’s fall production, “Tiny Beautiful Things.”

In the Kennedy Center competition, Glickman performed the Shakespeare scene as well as a monologue from “Five Women Wearing the Same Dress” by Alan Ball and a monologue from “Good People” by David Lindsay-Abaire.

An actor and musician, Glickman teaches locally to groups ranging from pre-schools to high schools. In addition to her studies at the college, she performs with Newburyport’s Theater in the Open, and has recently appeared in “Adventures in Zoomland: A Stay at Home Panto!” (2020), “A Christmas Carol Panto!” (2019), “A Peter Pan Panto!” (2019) “A Cinderella Panto!” (2018), and “Much Ado About Nothing” (2018). She is also the mother of a three-year old daughter.

On being selected to compete in the finals, Glickman said “I feel really lucky to have been able to challenge myself, elevate my craft, and work alongside women I deeply admire to make beautiful art during such trying and unsure times for the theater.”

For information on theater opportunities at Northern Essex, contact Brianne Beatrice at bbeatrice@necc.mass.edu.

Northern Essex Community College has campuses in both Haverhill and Lawrence. It offers approximately 60 associate degree and certificate programs as well as hundreds of noncredit courses designed for personal enrichment and career growth.  Each year, 6,000 students are enrolled in credit associate degree and certificate programs on the Haverhill and Lawrence campuses; and another 2,000 take noncredit workforce development and community education classes on campus, and at businesses and community sites across the Merrimack Valley.  For more information, visit the website at www.necc.mass.edu or call 978-556-3700.