Congratulations to the members of Homestead High School’s Troupe 4864 who will be the first thespians to represent our community at this year’s International Thespian Festival. These outstanding student actors and technicians will spend the week expanding their theatrical toolkits, performing their one act show, attending workshops and masterclasses, auditioning for colleges, and connecting with the next generation of theatre makers.
The International Thespian Festival is an annual week-long summer immersion experience hosted by the Educational Theatre Association. It brings together over 4,000 theatre students and educators from around the globe.
This past November, The Tempest competed at the Wisconsin High School Theatre Festival, where they swept in the award category. The Tempest won nine awards total and were chosen to represent Wisconsin. The Tempest won the Critic’s Choice Award, Outstanding Directing, Outstanding Ensemble, Outstanding Crew and five individual acting awards: Addison Drumm as Prospera, Sammie Buesing as Ariel, Georgia Sulsberger as Caliban, Ella Endres as Trinculo, and Neela Bergeron as Stephano. It was also at this festival that the judges decided The Tempest needed to be showcased further.
Homestead’s production of The Tempest was chosen to be the Chapter Select one-act for Wisconsin. Being a “Chapter Select” one-act school means your high school’s theatre troupe was chosen to represent your state’s International Thespian Society chapter at the International Thespian Festival. It is one of the highest honors a high school theatre program can achieve. The selected schools perform their shows live in front of thousands of theatre students, educators, and industry professionals from around the world.
The showcase focuses heavily on imaginative storytelling and acting rather than elaborate staging. Because of this, no large set pieces are permitted. Productions must be able to load in, perform, and strike everything within 60 minutes, lucky for us, we had to do it in 40 minutes last fall, so we have this down. For The Tempest we got rid of all our cylinder rocks and our alchemist table (which was a bit heart breaking for us all). The Festival will provide us with six stage cubes, so that is what we are using for our set and we’ve have fun creating different island areas via moving the blocks around. You will still see many of your favorite movement sequences and scenes, they’ve just been tweaked and played with.
Your last chance to see this award-winning one-act is Friday June 5th at 7pm. The performance is free and only 40 minutes long. There will be a reception to follow in the lobby.
Act Out 