Theatre major wins playwriting competition
Despite being a writer for as long as she can remember, theatre major Ava Cheff didn’t write her first play until 2025.
Nonetheless, Cheff decided to enter her work Mallory Richardson into the National Playwriting Program (NPP) Region III competition sponsored by the American College Theatre Festival (ACTF) hosted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Albion theatre faculty take students to the Region III gathering every January, and Cheff thought it would be a great way to get some constructive feedback. She got more than feedback.
“They were announcing the competition winners and I heard my name called [as regional winner] out in a room of more than 800 people,” she said. “My friends were screaming their heads off. Despite being primarily an actor, I struggle with being in the spotlight. It was an overwhelming experience.”
That experience had a very direct tie to Albion, thanks to the plays and process course Cheff took with technical lecturer Stephanie Henderson.
“I gained a lot of insight through that class, and through the smaller scenes and plays we wrote within it,” Cheff said. “Writing plays is incredibly focused on character — every playwright we studied started with understanding their characters and perspectives. That’s where I started with my play.”
Cheff is heavily involved in Albion’s theater program. She runs the theatre company’s Instagram account, and is currently playing the lead role in both the theatre department’s play Proof and the music department’s upcoming musical She Loves Me.
She also spent much of 2025 looking for a publisher for a novel. “Querying my manuscript is, at times, a very disheartening process. After months of it, I started to get quite down on myself,” Cheff said. “Everyone tells you that your work will find its people, but it can be difficult to believe that in a sea of rejections.”
Along with her continued efforts to find a publisher, Cheff will work on revisions to Mallory Richardson, which is eligible for the national ACTF/NPP competition. She’s excited about how the two projects may benefit from each other.
Writing [a novel] and trying to get it published gave me the skills I needed to write Mallory Richardson and the confidence I needed to submit to such a big competition,” she said. “Winning the award made me realize that I am capable, and the right people will find my work and connect to it.”
Ava Cheff is majoring in theatre with minors in marketing management and religious studies and is a member of the Prentiss M. Brown Honors Program. Cheff is the child of Nyree and Michael Cheff of Trenton and is a graduate of Trenton High School.
