BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) student Luke Harlan won the National Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers Directing Award at the national Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF), held April 17-22 at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

Harlan competed against seven other student directors from around the nation chosen to compete at the Kennedy Center. Each director was assigned a play written by student playwrights who won regional KCACTF competitions. Harlan cast the show at the Kennedy Center, rehearsed it all week and it was then performed as a staged reading.

Harlan, 22, is the son of Carol and Marvin Harlan of Fayetteville, Ark.

He was awarded a $1,000 scholarship and an all-expense paid, six-week summer internship at the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference at the O’Neill Institute in Waterford, Conn. Harlan also will have the chance to attend a social event hosted by theatrical set designer and longtime Yale School of Drama Professor Ming Cho Lee in New York, where he will meet with directors and designers from around the country.

What was most difficult for the directors at the national festival was directing original works which they were not familiar with, said Dennis McLernon, M.F.A., associate professor in the UAB Department of Theatre.

“That is a real testament to Luke’s ability as a director, to communicate with these people that he did not know previously,” McLernon said. “His training here at UAB, plus the mentoring that we try to do with each student, really served him well. He was placed in a position where he had to come forward with his own creativity. We are very, very proud of him.”

Harlan is slated to direct a main stage production, “The Laramie Project,” for Theatre UAB’s upcoming 2007-08 season.