A Trip To Maryland Thespian Festival

A Trip To Maryland Thespian Festival

Donald McElveen, Staff Writer

 

In the wee hours of the morning on January 6th, a whole hour before school began, Paint Branch Perspectives members boarded a bus and headed north to Towson University for the 2017 Maryland Thespian Festival.

The Maryland Thespian Festival is one giant, two-day convention for high-school- theatre clubs around the state. At the festival, students perform One Act shorts (plays that consist of just one act) that are judged, participate in various theatre-related workshops, perform before a panel of judges to qualify for International Thespian Festival, and compete in large-group competitions.

All the while, students have the opportunity to meet students from different schools, counties, and backgrounds. At the end of the second day, students who qualified for International Thespian Festival perform some of their qualifying pieces and receive plaques commemorating their achievement; then judges present awards to schools in a variety of categories and award plaques to schools that performed a One-Act. The last awards presented to students were for those who were named all-state thespians.

Paint Branch, which performed the one act “Most Likely To” won Best Costume and received a “good” rating for the performance. Juniors John Adames and Samantha Ortiz both won Best Actor and Best Actress for the one act, while senior Irvin Pamah received an All-State Thespian award. Senior Tari Owei also performed individually two monologues before the judges and received an excellent and superior rating.  

Now that the festival is over, the club is gearing up for the Spring Musical, Honk. Auditions are scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday of next week, while set production kicked off earlier this week.