In order to qualify for the International Thespian Festival, theater students traveled to Grapevine, TX to compete in the Texas Thespian State Festival at the Gaylord Texan Resort from Nov. 15-18.
“It was my first time going to Thescon, and it was so much fun because I got close to a lot of people that I wasn’t close to before,” senior Kaitlin Black said. “We had free range of the entire convention so we could take whatever classes we wanted to.”
At the convention, students had the opportunity to participate in a variety of workshops catered toward specific theatrical interests, covering everything from acting methods, to business, to pilates.
“My favorite workshop was one that focused on learning accents, which was really cool because the show we are doing for UIL uses an Irish accent, so the teacher helped us learn the different dialects,” senior Rachael Richman said.
Aside from the workshop portion of the convention, 10 out of the 28 Vandegrift attendees competed in events such as Theater Marketing, and Musical Theater Solos.
“First, the students selected pieces from a published musical or play,” theater teacher and chaperon Celeste Greenman said. “After they had practiced, we held a performance for drama club where we gave performers notes and feedback on what they could work on before the competition.”
At the festival, students performed in front of three judges, who graded based on a set of performance requirements, awarding scores of fair, good, excellent, and superior.
“Watching them perform at the hotel that day, I was thinking to myself, ‘Oh my gosh, these kids are so talented,’” Greenman said. “I hope that I had a little to do with that, but they’re just so good.”
In order to advance to the next round, contestants had to receive a superior rating, the highest score possible, from all three judges. There was no cap on the amount of students allowed to advance to internationals, however, according to Greenman, the process was highly selective as superior scores were not handed out liberally.
“I am a judge every year and I don’t give out many superiors,” Greenman said. “Superior ratings are difficult to get because most people are placed in the excellent category, which is one step below. Even me as a judge, I’ll maybe give two people superiors, so the fact that so many of our kids advanced is crazy.”
The next round of competition will take place over the summer at Indiana University, where students will compete against performers from all over the world. A total of six students from Vandegrift advanced, including Richman and Black.
“I have a vocal coach so I am going to go over my performance with her,” Richman said. “My friends and I are going to practice our performances together, which is nice because we can help each other and I can get a different viewpoint.”
While Black hasn’t decided whether or not she will compete in the next round, Richman plans to attend the competition and is dedicated to improving her performance using the feedback provided by the judges.
“The kids who compete are kids I’ve had since they were freshmen, and they’ve grown up from when they first came in,” Greenman said. “They first joined theater right after COVID, so I am proud of them for jumping in and really dedicating themselves.”
