Troy University Theater’s production of “A Lesson Before Dying” will be one of six performances that will be showcased at this year’s Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival Region IV on Feb. 3-8 at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

However, university students and the community will have an opportunity to see a remount of “A Lesson Before Dying” before the seven actors, 30 students and four faculty members leave Tuesday morning in three vans, a car and a Ryder truck.

The play will be performed at 7 p.m. Monday at the Claudia Crosby Theater. Tickets are $5 for the general public and free to university students with an ID.

Adena Moree, Troy University theater director, said the selection to the KCACTF was an honor and says a lot for the university’s theater program.

“The show was selected from the 10-state Southeast region area,” Moree said. “All participating university and college plays were viewed by KCACFT respondents and the top six were selected. That does say a lot for our theater department because all of the universities and colleges are put in the same barrel. That means that our show was judged along with the best programs in the country, like Florida State University, which has one of the best 10 theater programs in the country.”

Moree said it was especially meaningful for the Troy University Theater Department to be able to participate in the overall mission of the university and to have such a compelling story translated to the stage.

“It was meaningful for all of us who worked on the show,” she said. “We have been very blessed by the Kennedy Center.”

This was the sixth time Moree has received an invitation for her work to be shown at the festival since she joined the university in 1998. The play by Romulus Linney is based on the novel, “A Lesson Before Dying” by Ernest Gaines which is the subject of the university’s Common Reading Initiative.

The national festival will be held at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. in April. Three plays from across the country will be invited to perform.