Kristen Cheser
Staff Writer
For 47 years the Wyoming State Thespian Festival has been taking place in Wyoming, allowing for Wyoming schools to compete and learn.
For the last 30 years the festival has been a competitive event, allowing for Wyoming high schools to compete in different theatrical productions.
“This is a massive event that brings highschoolers to UW. It’s a great way for UW to connect better with students from around Wyoming,” said Amanda Dunsbar, a publicity intern and an event coordinator for the festival.
The Wyoming State Thespian Festival will be taking place at the end of this week. From Thurs. To Sat., over 800 students from 30 different highschools across Wyoming will take part in a variety of competitions.
These competitions will take place revolving around performances, designing and technical theatre. There are a total of 18 different categories high school students can compete in, plus scholarship opportunities.
A few of the designing competitions that will be held include costuming and scene design, realistic makeup and fantasy makeup in addition to others. Meanwhile performance competitions include but are not excluded to humorous or dramatic monologues, duets and solo musical performances, and each high school is allowed one group performance.
Group acts can be performed in one of three styles: proscenium, arena and devised. Proscenium is modelled like a traditional theatre performance with a traditional stage, arena is where the audience encircles the performers and devised is where students create their own style for the performance.
In addition to the competition, workshops will be provided to teachers and students on principles of theater including, acting, voice, movement, dance and design. The dance workshops will be led by Marsha Knight, a dance professor at UW who specializes in ballet, historical dance, choreography and period movement. Other workshops will be led by UW professors and coaches from different high schools of Wyoming.
The judges of the competition will consist of an array of UW professors and coaches from the high schools throughout Wyoming attending the festival.
“Unfortunately the event is closed from UW students becauses there will be 850 students and a couple hundred coaches and professors. There won’t be enough space for others to attend,” Dunsbar said.
Locations of the competing events will be across campus which includes the Buchanan Center for the Performing Arts and the UW Conference Center.
The Wyoming State Thespian Festival was organized by Wyoming Educators of Secondary Theatre, a non-profit organization. The core values of the Wyoming Educators of Secondary Theatre have the organization’s emphasis on the social and cultural importance and the importance the arts have on students and their interests.
The Wyoming Educators of Secondary Theatre (WEST) also provides scholarship opportunities to high school seniors of Wyoming who plan to major or minor in theatre arts. College scholarships are available at State Drama events like the Wyoming State Thespian Festival. The WEST Tom Empey Academic Award is available to students who have a GPA of 2.0 or above and have to letters of recommendation on top of being a Wyoming resident and a high school senior.
The festival is hosted by UW’s Department of Theatre and Dance.
