Dea Armstrong will graduate from Cal State San Bernardino in May with a bachelor’s degree in theater arts, but nearly a year before graduation, she received first-place honors in a national competition.
In her junior year at Cal State, Armstrong submitted her essay “First-Person Accounts and the Importance of William Wells Brown’s Work” to the Undergraduate Division of the Black Theatre Network’s S. Randolph Edmonds Young Scholars Competition, and in June 2023 she learned she had won first place.
This was the first time a Cal State San Bernardino student won a Black Theatre Network research award, according to a news release. The award included a monetary prize, and Armstrong presented her work last summer at the Black Theatre Network’s annual conference in St. Louis, Mo.
“I would encourage other Black students, artists, essay writers, anyone entering scholarship competitions, to definitely jump out and seize the moment because this was not something that I ever could have thought was possible unless I talked to my professors about it,” Armstrong said in the news release.
“Dea’s scholarship and her paper ‘First Person Accounts and the Importance of William Wells Brown’s Work’ is outstanding,” Kristi Papailler, assistant professor of acting and directing, said in the news release. “Ms. Armstrong’s research and analysis is new, unique and presents a valuable perspective appreciated by emerging and seasoned scholars in the field.”
Armstrong said her interest in William Wells Brown, a former slave, abolitionist and playwright, was sparked in Papailler’s African American Literature of Identity course.
“We had read and discussed his play ‘The Escape; or, A Leap for Freedom.’ He was writing about his background and experiences, and I don’t know what it was about him, but something just clicked,” Armstrong said in the news release.
When Papailler encouraged Armstrong to do more research, she read Brown’s memoir.
“I found that reading his memoir, I got incredibly emotional. The way that he wrote about his own experiences was incredibly poignant. It was really touching, but also really disturbing. That really pushed me to continue to write my essay, which started off as a basic essay format for my class. Then, later on I was encouraged to continue writing it, to edit it and to submit it to this competition,” Armstrong said in the news release.
Armstrong got involved with theater when she was attending Grand Terrace High School. At Cal State, she has worked as a student assistant in the theater arts department’s scene shop and has worked on Cal State theater productions in various capacities. She has also spent two summers with Redlands Theatre Festival.
When Armstrong attended the Black Theatre Network conference in St. Louis last July to present an abstract of her paper, Papailler accompanied her, along with Kathryn Ervin, a Cal State San Bernardino professor emerita of theater arts and Black Theatre Network past president; and Andre Harrington, Cal State professor of theater arts and department chairman and immediate past president of the Black Theatre Network.
“The three professors had a dress rehearsal for me so I could present the abstract and they could give me feedback on it, which was definitely helpful,” Armstrong said in the news release.
“Everyone at the conference felt inviting and wanted me to join in, and it felt good to be out in a new experience,” Armstrong said. “It felt good being around other Black professors and academics and designers and directors and actors.”
