The 14th annual Boston College Arts Festival, which took place April 26-28, enjoyed generally pleasant weather and a typically strong turn-out from the University and area communities. In addition to performers by students, faculty, staff and alumni, the festival featured the presentation of the Arts Council Awards, including the Alumni Award for Distinguished Achievement to theater director Tony Taccone ’72.
"The whole Arts Festival was a grand success. It was a success not only because of those three days that the thousands of people see the final product, but because of the hard work of months of planning, rehearsals, training, mentoring, advertising, and dedication by all the artists, student employees, faculty, staff, and volunteers that bring it to fruition.
I think the moments that stand out most for me are the moments the audience never sees. I remember how active the Arts Council Office became during spring semester with our student employees feverishly preparing supplies, advertising, programs, and dealing with all the details of creating such a large event. It was like a giant beehive with nonstop activity.
I also remember on the Friday of the festival [April 27] how the student volunteers had to stand behind the backdrop for the awards ceremony because it was windy and it would have fallen down. So the volunteers stood silently behind the BC Banner, unseen, to hold it in place for the hour we were on stage.
The final moment was on Saturday night, when we packed up and were all sitting in the tent exhausted and exhilarated because what we had done was such a success. We were already starting to talk about next year and looked forward to doing it all again." — Associate Professor of Theatre Crystal Tiala, chair of the BC Arts Council
"This year was my first as the Arts Festival director, and I have to say that what I was most impressed by was the huge range of talent our student artists encompass. The students’ dedication to the arts overwhelmed me, from the performers to the volunteers to the staff. I couldn’t have been happier with the passion that was exuded over the course of the festival.
One moment that stood out to me was Friday evening of the festival, around 10:30 p.m. At this point, my staff had already been working tirelessly over the course of the week to prepare, set up and run the festival. After already working 13 hours or so on Friday, they had to set up for one last event, the After Hours Theatre beginning at 11 p.m. I was so impressed with the energy they still had at that point in the festival; not only did I not hear any complaints from them, but they were happy to be there. We had some music on the speakers during set-up and they were singing along as they organized backstage, cleaned up the tent and tested sound and lighting for the stage. Their enthusiasm kept me going the entire week of the festival." —Sarah McDermott ’07, Arts Festival Director