ARTS
Starlight Scholarship Gwendolyn Cain finds healing in performing on stage By Bridgette M. Redman
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wendolyn Cain believes solace can be found in performance, as the troubling aspects of one’s life can be transformed into a character. She’s needed it during the COVID-19 pandemic, which isolated people and filled them with anxiety. The 16-year-old Mountain Ridge High School junior is the most recent Amy Bennett scholarship winner, announced in late August. The $500 scholarship is designated for use toward any of the 2020-21 season productions at Starlight Community Theatre. The scholarship is a memorial to Bennett, a former Starlight actress who was killed in an accident while riding her bike to a rehearsal. A “triple-threat” actress, Bennett pursued a degree in theater and moved to New York City. A foundation was formed in her name and has been giving memorial scholarships to Starlight since the 2017-18 season. Past recipients include Caleb Ormord, Gracie Palmer and Jenna Padro. Cain joined the Starlight family in August 2019 when she was in the ensemble of “Frozen Jr.,” playing several roles, including the housekeeper. While that was her first time on stage with them, she went to see “Mary Poppins” at Starlight when she was 9 years old. “It’s not far from where I live,” Cain says. “It’s
in the community and was always in the back of my mind. I didn’t think I could audition for something there. I was just looking for some nearby auditions, trying to get involved and Starlight’s ‘Frozen’ popped up. I love ‘Frozen,’ and I really wanted to try that out.” The production paved the way for her to play “Anna” in the Stage Dreams Youth Theater production of “Frozen Jr.” Through that, she performed in a junior theater festival when Stage Dreams condensed the show to 15 minutes and took it there. “Gwendolyn Cain has a bright future at Starlight Community Theater,” Artistic Director Dan Ashlock Jr. says. “As an actress in three of our shows this year, she demonstrated true professionalism, commitment and a lot of talent.” Ashlock says Cain has two very talented younger siblings, Jonah and Phoebe, who have also participated in several Starlight shows. “Starlight loves having whole families work together on projects, and the Cains are a very talented family,” Ashlock says. Cain has been performing since she was in fourth grade, when she took part in the required “Alice in Wonderland” stage show. Calling it “magical,” she says it was then she fell in love with theater. In middle school, she started performing with community theaters. Before the pandemic, she starred as a Russian mobster in her high school’s production of “Matilda.” “I loved doing that show,” Cain says. “There were several 18-hour days where we stayed at school until 1 or 2 in the morning. Our closing night of that show was Saturday night, and then Sunday morning the entire world shut down. It was a major blessing to finish out that show. It marked the beginning of all the craziness and the end of in-person theater.” Since then, she has been watching in wonder with the way people have been adapting to creating art. She’s participated in virtual shows like Starlight’s “Virtual Family” and the teen rendition of “Disorder in the Court.” In the first show, she played Alex, a human version of the Amazon device Alexa. Whenever a member of the house would say her name, she’d pop out and, in what she describes as an “obnoxious British accent,” say, “Hello, what can I do for you?” In the second show, she played the judge in a court that had no sense of order or decorum. Gwendolyn Cain has been watching in wonder with the way people have been adapting to creating art during the pandemic.
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Mountain Ridge High School junior Gwendolyn Cain, 16, is the most recent Amy Bennett scholarship winner. (Submitted photos)
“This court is completely wacky, and there is no sense of order,” Cain says. “As the overseer of this court, I have lines I had to follow, but it was a very loose structure for my character. I had a lot of freedom to make interesting choices.” As fall rolls in, Ashlock is making decisions about what the Starlight season will look like. The Starlight board met in mid-August and decided to host “Virtual Theater Trivia” at 7 p.m. September 26; “Adult Virtual Murder Mystery Party” at 7 p.m. October 2; “Young Adult/Teen Virtual Murder Mystery Party” at 7 p.m. October 3; and “Dracula” from October 23 to November 1. Cain is eager to use her scholarship to return to the stage with her Starlight friends. “I am just very anxious to get back up on a stage again,” Cain says. “There is something about being on a stage surrounded by your fellow cast members, who basically become your family. That is what is missing from the online experience, though I am extremely grateful to be participating in them amid the chaos and uncertainty.” She is concerned about the state of community theaters that rely on donations and ticket sales. It’s something she doesn’t want to see die, because theater and performing is a crucial part of her life. “Theater is like combining all methods of expressing yourself into one,” Cain says. “You get to become someone else entirely. The deeper you dive in and the more you connect to the character you are embodying, the more fulfilling it becomes. If you are in it enough, everything else just melts away. You are this character. You are telling another’s story, and that is just really beautiful to me.”
