Recent Alumna Wins Top Regional Acting Award

Chloe Shade ’22, ’25 MPA was recently named the Irene Ryan Acting Scholarship winner at the 58th annual Region IV Southeast Conference of the American College Theatre Festival.

One of eight regional chapters of ACTF, Region IV includes Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Southern Virginia, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. This year’s festival was held in Montgomery, Alabama, Feb. 3-7 and was jointly presented by Auburn University and the Alabama Shakespeare Festival.

The Irene Ryan Acting Scholarship is ACTF’s highest recognition in the acting discipline. Established by comic actor Irene Ryan (1902-1973), the Irene Ryan Foundation awards 16 regional and two national scholarships annually.

Shade, who received bachelor’s degrees in theatre and communications studies in 2022 and a Master of Public Administration in 2025, was selected from 17 finalists for the award, which also included current UNC Charlotte theatre student Jordan Goddard. She is the first UNC Charlotte student to receive the scholarship.

Shade played the leading role in the Department of Theatre’s production of “Intimate Apparel” last fall before graduating in December. She was joined at the festival by Professor of Theatre CarlosAlexis Cruz and four theatre students: Elle Billips, Xandra Bernard, Maxwell Martin and Goddard.

The students attended workshops in topics of acting, arts leadership, stage management, dramaturgy, and props design. They also toured cultural and historical sites associated with the Civil Rights Era.

“It was great to witness how this festival provided a clear space for community building and for students from across our region to present and celebrate each other’s work,” said Cruz.

In addition to Shade’s Irene Ryan Acting Scholarship, UNC Charlotte students received other honors:

• Elle Billips received a Literary Management and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA) award for her work in the production of “Intimate Apparel.”
• Maxwell Martin won the Jay Duckworth Prop-tologist Award for his props design work for “Intimate Apparel.”
• Shade was also an alternate for the ASPIRE Arts Leadership Award, an initiative designed to cultivate a new generation of artistic and administrative leaders.

“I was so proud to hear our institution name and our department be called time and again to the stage, let alone seeing one of our students lead the way in the acting category,” said Cruz.