The 2008 Thespian Festival doesn’t officially get underway until Tuesday, but there was plenty going on Monday on the campus of the University of Nebraska, Lincoln as 2,600 theatre students and teachers filtered into town for the weeklong celebration of theatre.
 Early in the morning UNL staff and student
volunteers began loading in the set for the
International Thespian Production of Hairspray to
prepare for two performances on Tuesday.  Nikki Graves, assistant stage manager on Hairspray, spikes the stage to show dance positions as the show is loaded in. A
2008 graduate of Silverado High School in Las Vegas, she’s one of forty-seven Thespians in the international production cast and crew.  In the sixty-plus-year history of the Festival, Steve the Cat is the first non-human delegate. The four-month-old Savannah (part Serengeti cat, part African serval) is a medical service animal who is able to alert his human, a Thespian chaperone from Indiana, to health problems.  Two shows kicked off the Festival schedule
Monday night. Sara Little played Babe in the Tupelo
(Mississippi) High School production of Beth
Henley’s Crimes of the Heart.  Ashley Prince, Sara Little, and Amanda Nordin in Crimes of the Heart.  Over in the Kimball Theatre, the Thespians from
Pleasant Valley (Iowa) High School were performing
Chicago to a full house. Spencer Hering as Billy
Flynn and the chorus perform “All I Care About.”  Roxie, played by Kelsey Francis, and Billy doing “We Both Reached for the Gun.” Load-in, Steve the Cat, Chicago: Don Corathers/Crimes of the Heart, Susan Doremus The 2008 Thespian Festival hit its stride with two performances of the International Thespian Cast production of Hairspray Tuesday, and other programs, including the Playworks student writing workshop, the Tech Challenge, and auditions for the National Individual Events Showcase, also got started.  More than 150 actors auditioned for roles in the four student plays in this year’s Thespian Playworks program. The plays are being rehearsed in script development workshops all week and will be performed in staged readings for a Festival audience on Saturday.  Dramaturg Kristoffer Diaz, left, and director Phil Moss, right, talk with Playworks participant Katie Hunter of Olathe East High School, Overland Park, Kansas during a break in auditions.  The Festival’s Tech Challenge gives design and production students a chance to show off their backstage skills, competing as teams in ten events. Above, a quick costume change.  Focusing an ellipsoidal in the Tech Challenge.  A company of forty-seven Thespian actors and technicians rehearsed the International Thespian Cast production of Hairspray over a series of long weekends on the campus of the University of Northern Colorado this spring and brought it to the Festival for two triumphant performances. Above, “Good Morning, Baltimore,” with Sydney Magers as Tracy Turnblad, and the company.  Hairspray creators Marc Shaiman (music and lyrics) and Scott Wittman (lyrics) posed for photos with cast members and spoke to the company before the first Festival performance.  Brad Frenette as Corny Collins and Molly Brynteson as Amber, performing “The Nicest Kids in Town” with the company.  Velma (Natalie Wisener) doing “Miss Baltimore
Crabs.”  Sydney Magers and Jeff Zicker, playing Link,
“It Takes Two.”  The Dynamites, from left, Katherine Thomas, Aisha Jackson, and Tia Pinson, “Welcome to the Sixties.”  “Run and Tell That,” with Allyssa Schmitt as Penny and Julian Crider as Seaweed.  Jacob Porter as Wilbur and Corey Thompson as
Edna doing “You’re Timeless to Me.”  Amy Lamken, Jon Shockness, and Kelley Peters
mug for a photo just before the show. Playworks, Hairspray 2, 4, 8, and 9: Don Corathers/Tech Challenge: Susan Doremus/Hairspray 1, 3, 5, 6, and 7: R. Bruhn There were four main stage shows on Wednesday’s Festival slate, and the full workshop schedule kicked in, offering students and teachers ninety-minute nuggets of instruction on more than 140 topics.
 Omar Ingram played Willie, James Franch was Hally, and Hampton Fluker was Sam in the Lied Center production of Athol Fugard’s “Master Harold”...and the Boys, brought to the Festival by The Westminster School in Atlanta.  Master Harold. The performance was preceded by
a video presentation of an interview with the
playwright by the cast and other Westminster
students.  Master Harold.  The Randolph School in Huntsville, Alabama brought its production of The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds to the Festival. Piper Madison played Tillie and Meghan Kenny was Beatrice.  Marigolds: Tillie and friend.  Larry Bridges leads a musical theatre workshop.  A dancer in Patricia Downey’s workshop titled
“Whirling, Twirling, and Landing on Your Feet.”  Bryan Wallace, a senior at Prestonwood Christian Academy in Plano, Texas presents his scenic design portfolio to college representatives. More than forty colleges and universities are interviewing and auditioning prospective students at the Festival.  Students from Mary D. Bradford High School (Kenosha, Wisconsin) presented their world premiere production of Rent: School Edition Wednesday night in the Lied Center auditorium. Krystina Andreoli as Mimi entreats Roger, played by Mat Dunwald, to take her “Out Tonight.”  Cody Ellsworth as Angel sings “Today for You.”  Katherine Thomas (Joanne) and Tyler Thorsen
(Mark) perform “The Tango Maureen.”  Mat Dunwald (Roger), Luis Herrera (Collins), and Tyler Thorsen (Mark) sing “Happy New Year.”  The cast performs “La Vie Boheme.”  James Leonard Jr.’s Anatomy of Gray, brought to the Festival by Blue Valley High School, Stillwell, Kansas. Samantha Steinmetz as Maggie and Scott Bolton as Homer listen to Pastor Phineas Wingfield fulminating abut Dr. Galen Gray.  Dr. Gray (Justin Prelogar) administers a treatment
for kidney stones to Rev. Wingfield as Tiny Wingfield
(Laurel Hill) looks on. Master Harold, Rent: R. Bruhn/Workshops: Susan Doremus/Marigolds, Gray, Audition: Don Corathers Las Vegas Academy’s production of Sweeney Todd and The Diviners, brought to the Festival by two Indiana high schools, headlined the main stage schedule on Thursday.
 Sarah Vought prepares to go onstage as Jennie Mae Layman in The Diviners, the second of two Jim Leonard Jr. plays at this year’s Festival. Two Indiana schools, Floyd Central High School in Floyd’s Knobs and Silver Creek High School in Sellersburg, collaborated on the production.  The Diviners: Sarah Vought with Colin
Schreier, who plays C.C. Showers.  The Diviners: Aaron Mikel, center, as Buddy Layman.  The Diviners: Taylor Walker, Katie Thurston, and Meredith Haas.  Las Vegas Academy’s Sweeney Todd.  Sweeney Todd: Jeff Zicker as
Anthony and Tia Konsur as Joanna.  Rebecca Stewart as Mrs. Lovett and Philip Cerza as Sweeney Todd.  “Epiphany,” Philip Cerza.  Sweeney Todd: “God That’s Good.”  Students participating in the college audition program checked the callback notices...  ...and then met with college representatives in the Festival exhibit area for interviews.  Learning to tap in a workshop taught by Angie Fleddermann Miller from Millikin University.  In Warren Holz’s makeup workshop, students learned by applying character makeup to each other. Sweeney Todd, The Diviners, R. Bruhn/Workshops: Susan Doremus/Callbacks: Don Corathers More than five hundred Thespians participated in the Festival’s Individual Events program, and the top performers were invited to share their work in the National Individual Events Showcase Friday morning.
 Duet mime: Tucker Worley and Jonathan O’Connell,
Denver School of the Arts.  Monologue: Janielle Kastner, Prestonwood
Christian Academy, Plano, Texas.  Duet acting: Taylor Ward and Mariah
Nonnemacher, Alma (Arkansas) High School.  Duet musical theatre: Justin Hall and Drew Coston, Lexington (South Carolina) High School.  Group musical theatre: Temple (Texas) High School.  Solo musical theatre: Jennifer Castleberry,
Harris County High School, Hamilton,
Georgia.  Duet acting: Abby Huffstetler and Luke Camp, Rockmart (Georgia) High School.  Solo mime: Michael Groth, Westview High School,
Portland, Oregon.
Also recognized were Aaron Hewitt, Pleasant Valley (Iowa) High School, and Benito Sanches, Lincoln (Nebraska) High School, for their short films. And these finalists in technical categories: publicity design, Alexandra Tolleson, Temple (Texas) High School; costume design, Rachel Wilkinson, Pleasant Valley (Iowa) High School; costume construction, Zoe Mizuno, Denver School of the Arts; scenic design, Amelia Gossett, Round Rock (Texas) High School; stage management, Adam Moser, Youth Performing Arts School, Louisville, Kentucky.  Students work out in Paul Keoni Chun’s yoga
workshop.  A period dance workshop led by Jeff Hudkins.  David Auburn’s Proof, produced by Ryan High School in Denton, Texas, was the Friday night Lied Center show. Members of the company joined hands in a pre-show ritual.  Hannah Black and Kelsey Clay in Proof.  Brandon Hines with Hannah Black. Individual Events, Proof: R. Bruhn/Workshops: Susan Doremus The Festival’s final day featured productions of Noises Off, Little Shop of Horrors, and James Still’s Holocaust docudrama And Then They Came for Me. In the afternoon, Festival delegates participated in workshops, watched short plays in two smaller theatres, and sat in on the staged readings of this year’s four Thespian Playworks finalist plays.
 Miriam Schwartz, Kelsey Sanders, and Daniel
Berryman in And Then They Came for Me, brought
to the Festival by Roosevelt High School, Seattle,
Washington.  Kelsey Sanders played the young Eva Schloss. The
play tells the story of Eva’s childhood in Amsterdam
under the Nazis. Living in the same apartment
building as Anne Frank, she and her family were
arrested and sent to Auschwitz on her fifteenth
birthday.  Eva and her mother survived eight months in the camp, and Eva now lives in London. After the performance, she joined the Roosevelt cast on stage for a question-and-answer session with the audience.  It was show-and-tell time for the participants in the Festival’s Thespian Playworks student writing program. After a week of developmental workshop rehearsals, the four plays were presented in staged readings. This is a moment from Icarus, by Luke Slattery, Colorado Academy, Denver, with Jen Shafer and Elizabeth Vinci.  Playworks: Jeff Hayes and Scott Duff in www.SelfStory.com, by Katie Hunter, Olathe East High School, Overland Park, Kansas.  Playworks: Izzy Icarus Fell Off the World, by Aliza
Goldstein, Staunton Preparatory School,
Jacksonville, Florida, with Matt Vu as Izzy.  Playworks: Parker Searfess, Anna Masad, and Cason Longley in Chartreuse, by Lindsay Miller, Nolan Catholic High School, Ovilla, Texas.  Kathleen Schandelmeier discusses the fine points of selling a song in her musical theatre workshop.  Bailey Commander, Megan Fulmer, and Dara Orland were the Ronettes in the Pennsbury High School (Fairless Hills, Pennsylvania) production of Little Shop of Horrors.  Little Shop: Max Cove as Seymour and Alison
Keefe as Audrey.  Little Shop: Seymour and friend.  Little Shop: Seymour, Audrey, and Audrey II.  The Salina (Kansas) Central High School production of Michael Frayn’s Noises Off, with Allison Yaple and Mike Claman.  Brandon Jenson in Noises Off.  Noises Off.  Noises Off. And Then They Came for Me, Little Shop: R. Bruhn/Workshop, Noises Off: Susan Doremus/Playworks: Don Corathers |