The MO State Thespian Conference was held in downtown St Louis on Jan 9th, 10th, and 11th, 2013.
This year we had 27 students and two chaperones attend the conference and it was a blast!
It was hosted by the Renaissance Grand and Conference Center and at the St Louis Convention Center.
A beautiful Hotel in which to spend a theatrical weekend!
We left the campus of WGHS in a snow storm with Tim driving the bus for us and Mrs. R and Mr Schaefer followed in their cars with all the supplies for the weekend.
We arrived around 9:30 and immediately checked into our rooms, registered, got name tags and went right to the first general assembly.
Our Keynote Speaker for the weekend kick-off meeting was the fabulous St Louis native, Broadway legion and Hollywood voice artist
Mr. Ken Paige.
Ken attended Bishop DuBourg and then Fontbonne College. He began his career in the Chorus at the MUNY where he stills performs regularly. He found his next level of success on Broadway in great shows like Guys and Dolls, The Wiz, Ain't Misbehavin', and Cats.
Courtney DeGroot and Gabby Berkeley got a pic and autograph from Ken Paige!
We of course all loved it when he broke out some of his great voices at the podium including his famous voice role in the Nightmare Before Christmas's "Ooogie Boogie". The crowd loved him and Ken was thrilled to be a part of our festival.
Duncan was elected at the 2013 ITF conference in June
Our very own Duncan Kinzie also spoke in the first general Assembly as our ITO Region II representative. He was calm cool and collected in front of all of his fellow MO Thespians and spoke about advocacy and community.
Duncan was a great role model for the State Thespian Officers
He will also be attending many other Region II Thespian Festivals throughout the Spring, and of course the ITF conference in June where he will have to hand off the job
to the next group of ITO officers.
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Troupe 191 at the MO Thescon General Assembly
Once we got settled into the conference we immediately began to attend some of the cool workshops and the IE events.
THURSDAY Performance EVENTS:
Sarah Addison and Erin Stanton - performed "Three Bedroom House" a song from Batboy the Musical and did very well!
Duncan Kinzie and Liv Kohring - performed a scene from Angels in America and did very well! (they kinda got robbed when a judge in their room gave low scores to kids for material selection, but was the only one to feel the way he ddi...they received top scores from the other two judges)
Emma Lingle, Robbie Morefield, Carl Wickman, Justin Comegys, Melanie Umbaugh, Nia Walker, and Zack Sullivan - performed a scene from The Marriage of Bette and Boo and did a great job with the scene...they got the text down and really made it charming and funny!
Essence Tyler- performed "I'm Here" a song from The Color Purple and received highs scores and an invitation to perform at the Showcase in front of the whole conference and an invitation to attend ITF in June.
She rocked it out!
Emily Jackoway - performed a piece from the Woolgatherer and a William Shakespeare monologue from Twelfth Night and she too got an invitation to perform at the Showcase in front of the whole conference and an invitation to attend ITF in June. She did a great job!
Thurs IE TECH Events:
Gabbie Moreland - attended the "costume designer" IE tech event with her designs for A Midsummer's Night Dream. She did a great job on her sketches for 5 of the costumes in the show and held in own in front of professional judges in this very intimidating Q and A event. She learned a lot and got some good feedback.
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THE ALL STATE SHOW - Thursday night was Violet in the Ferrar Theater
We all really liked the show and the cast and crew really did a great job with this very weird show!
LATE Thurs Night -
Our WGHS IMPROV TEAM (Annaleise Kerr-Grant, Eugene Gardiner, Peyton Lansing, Lilly Newsham, and Gabriella Berkeley)- played their first round of improv in a packed room and the game was "DANCE Off". They made the room laugh with their crazy dances. Like AKG's "Microwave" dance.
Of course the students just liked being weird as always!
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FRIDAY - was a day of College Scholarship auditions for Liv and everyone else attended some grat workshops on Dance/movement, sword fighting, improv, tech and so much more!
Kate Arendes, Emma Lingle, and Duncan Kinzie all played a round of Improv a Musical with the St Louis "King of Improv", the fabulously funny Ed Reggi.
Warming up before the game Emma, Ryan and Duncan speak to the rhythm
The circus performing workshop was definitely popular!
FRIDAY night we attended the Branson production of the Miracle Worker which turned out to be very nice and made us feel a little better about being beat out for a slot for our Frankenstein submission. The leads did a great job, and the story was very touching. We liked our set better, but we look forward to our revival now even more.
LATE Friday night the kids split into two groups.
WGHS TECH TEAM: (Jonah Schnell, Ryan Tuminnello, Clare Kercher, and Sarah Drost) prepared for the tech Challenge on Sat morning with a Tech Challenge preview! It was awesome to watch the tech teams perfect their best times on each event.
The dance was going on right next door and they kept their focus and worked through each of the events. (Rope tie, sound set-up, cabling, platform legging, light hang, sound cable coiling, and drop folding.)
Sarah Addison and Erin Stanton giving the tech team some moral support and of course on the hunt for the boys at conference:)
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The Friday Night MO Thescon "DANCE"
They had a great DJ that pumped music for about 2 hours, bubbles, lighting and of course the room became a sweaty mess of teenagers!
Some of our troupe ready to hit the dance!
AKG, Gabbriella Berkeley, Gabbie Moreland and Courtney ready to SHINE!!!
Window Twerk'n with Emily!
The girlpower of Troupe 191
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SATURDAY - the last day of Conference!
We had IMPROV OLYMPIX and TECH CHALLENGE at 9:00am and everyone had to be out of their rooms before we headed over to the events. After a long day and night it was not easy to get the troupe going, but everyone got bags checked and got to their events in time.
Watch our tech team do the drop folding event!
Both teams did great! Tech Team had awesome times on their events and really worked hard the whole morning. They stayed the whole time and even tried to get a better time on the last event but got kicked out because the clock had run out. For the first TECH team WG has sent to a conference we have a lot to be proud of with this team!!! CONGRATS!!!
IMPROV team did very well too! They didn't really come to conference knowing all of the games they would be asked to play and they did great adapting and giving the audience some really funny scenework. The games they got to play were "Mission Quite Improssible" and "Emotional Props". Both games' instructions were relayed to them by Mr. Schaefer as they waited to go on and they rocked it out! CONGRATS!!!
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SATURDAY's Last General Assembly and IE Showcase
Two of our troupe members got to perform at the showcase and did a great job!
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GREAT Job on a fabulous conference and a wonderful experience for our department. We have so much to be thankful for and so many great memories were made. Keep up the good work this Spring and here's to those attending ITF in June!!!
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Special thanks to Mrs. Romanowski for all her work on getting the entireTroupe 191 registered, all money collected, IE's set-up and for having her room turned into the Troupe 191 Cafeteria. We had Qdoba, Psgetti's, Little Ceasar's Pizza, vegan items from Schnucks had to offer and tons of great breakfast treats.
Special Thanks to Mr. Schaefer for picking up all the pizza's and the subway on Sat.
Special Thanks to Mr. Grooms for bringing down the Thurday night meal for us!
The WGHS meal plan worked out great!
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