Kelly Bartlett doesn’t need prestige or a master’s degree to know her passion lies in theater.

The passion can be seen in her work in nearly a dozen productions at Iowa State and in her recent achievement as a finalist in the Irene Ryan Acting Competition.

Bartlett, a liberal arts and sciences major, is one of only 14 students from around the country to be selected for the final round of the competition, which is held at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

It’s a credit to the education she’s been able to receive at Iowa State, Bartlett said.

“I’m very happy for our school,” said Bartlett, a student of ISU Theater.

Many finalists in the competition attend universities with larger theater departments than Iowa State, she said.

“In comparison, our department is much smaller, and we don’t have a graduate program here,” Bartlett said.

Iowa State has provided many opportunities for Bartlett to take the stage. Her acting credits include “Lend Me a Tenor” and “The Good Times are Killing Me.” She also choreographed “Oklahoma” and “The Fantasticks.”

The final round of the Irene Ryan competition involves five-minute competitions in which the actors perform scenes with partners or in monologues, said Jane Cox, associate professor of music. This part of the competition will be in mid-April.

“What the actors try to do is find two roles in those five minutes that are really distant from each other so you can show the people there watching the scope of what you can do, the variety of what you can do,” Cox said. “They shouldn’t be exactly the same kind of piece.”

The path to this stage of the competition involved a nomination from talent scouts who saw Bartlett in the fall production of “Crimes of the Heart,” which Cox directed. Bartlett’s co-star in the production, Melissa Larsen, also was nominated for her portrayal of Babe.

These nominations led to the students’ entrance in the regional competition.

“When a university production is entered into this competition, a respondent is sent out to respond to the production and nominate a student from that production to go to regional competition,” Cox said.

Larsen, who has starred in other productions with Bartlett, as well as last year’s “Twelfth Night,” made it to the semifinal round of the competition.

“The last time anyone [from Iowa State] made it past the preliminary rounds was my freshman year,” said Larsen, senior in performing arts.

Both students were the only two who made it to the semi-final rounds after competing in preliminary rounds.

In “Crimes of the Heart,” Bartlett portrayed Lenny, the oldest of three sisters.

“[Lenny] always tries to do good and . right and take care of her grandfather, but she begins to feel she has neglected her own happiness in trying to take care of her grandfather,” Cox said.

“But she begins to feel she has neglected her own happiness in trying to care for other people, and so she starts out to change that through the course of the script.”

Although this performance is what led to Bartlett’s nomination, she also has been active in theater productions as a dancer and choreographer.

“I was a dancer first,” Bartlett said, “so my freshman and sophomore years, I was primarily involved in Orchesis I and Barjche.”

Currently, she is the choreographer and assistant director of the “Stars Over Veishea” production of “Grease.”