The 2009 International Thespian Festival got underway Tuesday (June 23), with more than 2,500 students participating in a full schedule of activities. Here’s what it looked like.
 More than 120 actors auditioned for roles in one of
the four student-written plays that are being
workshopped in the Festival’s Thespian Playworks
program.  Bridget Winder, a recent graduate of Evangel
Christian Academy in Shreveport, Louisiana, was
one of six hundred students who began auditions in
the Thespian Society’s scholarship program Tuesday.  Design and production students bid for scholarships in interviews with portfolio reviews. This is Delany McCormick, a recent graduate of Paola (Kansas) High School.  Technicians also get a chance to show what they can
do in the Festival’s Tech Challenge, in which twenty-
two teams competed for bragging rights this year.
Matt Vu of Southside Senior High School in Fort Smith,
Arkansas works the leko station.  The quick-change exercise in the Tech Challenge.  A workshop: “How to Warm Up Without Really Trying,” taught by Roberta Rude of the University of South Dakota. 
Christopher Barbeau of the University of Michigan (right) led a workshop on stunt falls.  Houston’s Memorial Senior High School kicked off the
Festival’s main stage schedule with two performances of
their production of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.
Candice Pink played Belle and Taylor Harper was
Gaston.  Brett Mourglia as Cogsworth.  The townspeople celebrate the thickness of Gaston’s neck in one of the show’s big numbers, “Gaston.”  “Be Our Guest.”  Dino Nicandros as the Beast.
Photographs:
Don Corathers (Playworks auditions, Tech Challenge)
Susan Doremus (scholarship auditions, workshops, Beauty and the Beast 2, 3, 4, and 5)
R. Bruhn (Beauty and the Beast 1)
The Festival schedule was in full swing Wednesday, with main stage shows morning and evening and workshops, auditions, and more shows in between.  Forever Plaid on the Lied Center main stage, brought to the Festival by Flower Mound (Texas) High School, with Nathan Goodrich, James Hayden, Daniel Windham, and Tom Hamlett.  Forever Plaid.  Forever Plaid.  Mountlake Terrace (Washington) High School brought The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) to the Kimball main stage. The cast included Michael Ward, Gabe Much, Alan Garcia, and Nick Terry.  The Complete Works.  Enjoying a game in Aretta Baumgartner’s creative dramatics workshop.  Jo Beth Gonzalez assured participants in her
“Understanding Absurdism” workshop that the title
was not an oxymoron.  Owensboro (Kentucky) High School’s production of
The Boys Next Door, on the Lied stage Wednesday
night.  The Boys Next Door.
Photographs:
R. Bruhn (Forever Plaid, Boys Next Door)
Don Corathers (Complete Works)
Susan Doremus (workshops)
John Cariani’s Almost, Maine and a stylish Missouri production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream were the featured main stage productions on Thursday.
 Almost, Maine, brought to the Festival by Dubuque (Iowa) Senior High School.  Almost, Maine.  The busy Festival workshop schedule continued on
Thursday with dozens of sessions, including one on
musical theatre dance taught by Sarah Plunkett…  … and Brian Curl’s “The Broadway Musical Experience.”  Larry Bridges taught singers how to belt…  … and Warren Holz demonstrated basic and specialized makeup techniques.  In the dressing room before the Missouri Thespians
all-state production of Midsummer Night’s Dream.  Midsummer Night’s Dream: Christina Ramirez as Hermia
and Jake Rubin as Lysander.  Titania (Sophia Brown) admires Bottom (Jacob Golliher).  Andrew Arnett as Oberon and Amy Hoehn, playing Puck.  Jacob Golliher playing Bottom playing Pyramus. Photographs:
R. Bruhn (Almost, Maine and A Midsummer Night’s Dream)
Susan Doremus (workshops)
Don Corathers (Holz workshop)
A rarely seen Lanford Wilson play and an all-Ohio production of the Elvis jukebox musical All Shook Up were highlights of the Friday main stage schedule.
 Harry S Truman High School, Levittown, Pennsylvania, brought Wilson’s Rimers of Eldritch to the Festival.  Rimers of Eldritch.  Gordon Hensley of Appalachian State University taught
a workshop on airbrush makeup.  Broadway composer Jeanine Tesori (Shrek the Musical,
Caroline or Change, Thoroughly Modern Millie) coached
students on musical theatre performance.  Ed Reggi leading his improv workshop.  Kristin Kauffman plays a commedia dell’arte character in a Friday afternoon workshop.  Mack Shirilla from Strongsville (Ohio) High School
played Chad in the all-Ohio production of All Shook Up
on the Lied Center stage.  All Shook Up.  All Shook Up.  All Shook Up.
Photographs:
R. Bruhn (Rimers, All Shook Up)
Susan Doremus (Hensley, Reggi workshops)
Don Corathers (Tesori, Kauffman workshops)
Saturday was show-and-tell time for students who had been working on Individual Events and Thespian Playworks all week.
 Christopher Silverberg of Prestonwood Christian
Academy in Plano, Texas performing a monologue in
the National Individual Events Showcase.  Bryan Gray and Philip Wozny, Cypress Woods High
School, Cypress, Texas, in a scene from The Miser.  Kiandra Layne, a student at the School for Creative
and Performing Arts in Cincinnati, did a piece from
Fences in the NIES.  Trevor Hennigan and Grace Allen, Century High School, Hillsboro, Oregon, in their NIES duet musical performance.  Joe Mendick played Doc in the Thespian Playworks
production of Shrunken Heads, by Andrew Prosser,
Lake Dallas High School, Corinth, Texas.  Sarah Harmon, Sarah Caroline Billings, and
Sam Van Wetter in The Meaning of Enchantment:
A Ghost Fable, a Playworks piece by Zac Coffey,
Boulder Creek High School, Anthem, Arizona.  Other People’s Garden Gnomes, by Aliza Goldstein,
Stanton College Preparatory School, Jacksonville,
Florida, with Margaret Fitzgerald and Ryan Pieroni.  New to Playworks this year was the WIT (Write It
Today) Project, in which five writer-performers
created monologues and scenes during the Festival
week. Tyler Corsaut of Manhattan (Kansas) High
School performs his work during the Saturday
Playworks staged readings.  Dawn Arnold, of Chicago’s Moving Dock Theatre Company, led an acting workshop based on the ideas of Michael Chekhov.  Working on a monologue in actor Dion Graham’s
workshop.  Katherine Harrison played Julia and Alexis Henning was Holly in the Festival’s closing show, The Wedding Singer, produced by Lemon Bay High School, Englewood, Florida.  The Wedding Singer, with Jessica Reyes as Linda.  Robby Wagenseil as George at Jared’s (Will Fisackerly)
Bar Mitzvah.  Dylan Profitt and Kyle Rich in The Wedding Singer. Photographs:
R. Bruhn (NIES, The Wedding Singer)
Susan Doremus (workshops)
Don Corathers (Thespian Playworks) |