Portland Civic Players announces Scholarship Winners

For the 3rd year The Portland Civic Players are pleased to announce the recipients of the Eddy-Bandfield Memorial Scholarship. The “Eddy-Bandfield Memorial Scholarship” was created to honor 4 very influential members of our organization. Tom and Marilyn Bandfield and Bill and Anne Eddy.

PCP was honored to be able to present this year’s scholarship to two incredible students: Mary Timer and Bryson Krieger.

Bryson first joined the PCP in the summer of 2012 as a part of the Summer Theatre Youth Program in the show The Fearsome Pirate Frank. Ever since then he has participated in seven PCP summer theatre shows, three and a half PCP fall musicals (he stepped in as an understudy for a performance), a spring PCP production, four PHS shows, and one PHS radio show. Bryson has also taken many theatre classes throughout high school including a technical theatre class and a directing class. Other activities that you may have seen Bryson in include the Portland High School marching band (trumpet/drum major), concert band (trumpet/guest conductor), jazz band (trumpet/flugelhorn), Portland Community Orchestra (trumpet/guest conductor), and a student led band (trumpet/tambourine). Now that Act One (“Grades k-13”) is finally finished and Bryson is done with the PHS Early Middle College Program, he is excited to move onto Act Two after his little intermission in Colorado this summer. The intermission will consist of Bryson performing as an assistant counselor at an outdoor camp in Colorado. When he comes back Act Two will begin (“Bryson Goes to University”) and Bryson will attend Northern Michigan University as a physics major with an engineering focus and a theatre minor. Bryson would like to thank all of his friends and family as they have encouraged him to pursue his goals. He would also like to thank his mom in particular for passing on her enjoyment of theatre to him. Act One may be over, but there is still a lot more to come. So sit back and enjoy the show. Break a leg Bryson!

Mary also joined PCP with our Summer Theater Youth Program in 2012. Mary says the theater has always felt like a second home to her. She has had many years of education and training in many aspects of the arts that have served her well in her theater life including many years of ballet, guitar and piano lessons and voice lessons. She has also served as a substitute music teacher at Miller Music Studio. She minored in musical theater at the Blue Lakes Fine Arts Academy. In her many years of Summer Theater, she had roles on stage and off, including being the assistant Music Leader for their production of “Once on This Island, Jr.”. She has performed in productions at Portland High School, including The Witch in “Into the Woods”. You may remember Mary as Molly in the PCP production of “Annie”, or Flounder in our production of “Disney’s The Little Mermaid”. Most recently you may have seen taking the lead as Dorothy in the PCP production of “Wizard of Oz”. She says this is her favorite production to date and has been a lover of all things Oz and Dorothy since she could walk. For Mary’s second act, she will be attending Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music to study Jazz Voice. She is excited to audition for a musical performance group there called “The Singing Hoosiers”. We are beyond confident everything she has learned over the years will serve her well. Break all the legs Mary!!

We have had the privilege of watching these incredible young people grow up and are looking forward to seeing where the journey will take them next. We can only hope that our organization will stay in their hearts and they will continue to carry on the legacy of the theater left by those who this scholarship is named for.