Jeff Walker One -Act Festival

In the early days of the Drama League’s Children’s Wing, now known as the Chrysalis Players, a young talent named Jeff Walker was one of the shining stars. Not only was he extraordinarily gifted onstage, but he was also incredibly charismatic and lit up the building with his broad smile and infectious personality.

For several years, he was a welcome fixture in the cast of nearly every Children’s Wing show. This included being cast as Benvolio in the Wilmington Drama League’s 1995 production of Romeo & Juliet. On April 27, the Thursday between performance weekends, Jeff was tragically killed in a car accident near his home at the age of seventeen. The show proceeded through closing weekend with the director reading his lines from the script.

In the months that followed, he was posthumously presented with the Bob Evans Award for exemplary youth in theatre. And the regional youth one act festival in Pennsylvania, in which he had won the first-ever award for Best Actor, was renamed in his honor. The Wilmington Drama League has since become the host for that annual event and it retains his name.

Many of the young people in this festival were not even born the day that we lost Jeff, but they are touched by everything he contributed to help grow the Chrysalis Players to what it is today. We dedicate this festival to Jeff.