April 2, 2010
The Culture Center will set the stage for more than 400 high school students as the West Virginia Division of Culture and History hosts the annual West Virginia State Thespian Festival April 8 - 10. Drama students will perform, attend workshops and be judged on their theater skills.
The festival begins with registration at 8 a.m. on Thursday, April 8, and ends with an awards ceremony at 2 p.m., on Saturday, April 10. At that time, five outstanding play performances, six scene performances, technical theater winners, an all-state cast, two $600 scholarships to individual students from the Educational Theatre Association, parent organization of West Virginia Thespians, and theater representatives for the Arts Alive! Showcase will be announced. In addition, scholarship money from West Virginia University and Marshall University also will be presented to outstanding acting and technical theater students during the ceremony. Other announcements including the Thespian Teacher of the Year and a Theater Appreciation Award to a person who has worked in theater and with thespians will be acknowledged during the opening ceremony at 11 a.m., on Thursday.
Twenty-one schools from six areas of the state will participate in the festival. There will be 15 plays and 21 scene entries judged by five guest adjudicators. There also will be 19 monologues, 15 musical theater solos, nine musical theater duets and 14 playwriting entries that will be judged. Sixteen theater professionals will provide technical theater adjudications and lead students in workshops.
Technical theater categories include costume design and construction; extraordinary project; lighting design; make-up; mask design; properties, publicity; puppetry; set design; stage management; and tech rodeo. Workshops, held on Thursday and Friday, include “Armed Stage Combat,” “Unarmed Stage Combat,” “Vocal Techniques,” “Lighting 101,” “Lighting 102,” “Audition Do’s and Don’ts,” “Broadway Boogie,” “Theatre Games,” “State Student Board Workshop,” and “Blood, Gore and Guts,” among others.
For more information about the 2010 West Virginia State Thespian Festival, contact Jacqueline Proctor, deputy commissioner for the Division, at (304) 558-0220.
The West Virginia Division of Culture and History, an agency of the West Virginia Department of Education and the Arts, brings together the state’s past, present and future through programs and services in the areas of archives and history, the arts, historic preservation and museums. Its administrative offices are located at the Culture Center in the State Capitol Complex in Charleston, which also houses the state archives and state museum. The Culture Center is West Virginia’s official showcase for the arts. The agency also operates a network of museums and historic sites across the state. For more information about the Division’s programs, visit www.wvculture.org. The Division of Culture and History is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.
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