Hello All,

Reminder: To unlock your registration account you must attend one of the mandatory pre-registration meetings below.

Beginning of Year Troupe Director Pre-Registration Meetings:

• Tuesday, August 25th 7pm

• Thursday, August 27th 7pm

• Saturday, August 29th 9am

• Link for all: https://meet.google.com/mpu-chvj-goc

Maryland State Thespian Festival dates this year will be January 22-23, 2027 at Towson University. And the JUNIOR Festival, for middle school students, will be Thursday, January 21.

Registration will open September 1st and will close November 6th. Please note that space is limited and that registration can fill up before the close date. Last year we reached capacity over a week before the schedule deadline. (If the festival is not full by Nov. 6th, we may opt to extend the deadline.)

While all Thespys must be started in the OpenWater system by November 6th - so we can plan for sufficient adjudicators - we were able to extend the deadline to upload/finalize/submit Thespys to December 4th!

New this year: 35 student limit on Student registrants. If your troupe usually brings a large number of students, you may want to think about prioritizing your potential attendees.

Troupe Director and Chaperone numbers are not part of that limit at this time, partly because of the wide range of district policies etc. However, it is important to remember that we cannot guarantee more than 2 seats for chaperones in some events, like opening/closing ceremonies, Mainstage show etc. Also, please reinforce with your chaperones that Student attendance at events should be prioritized throughout festival and that festival ‘volunteer’/monitoring duties will be assigned to all chaperones.

One Act Applications will open September 2nd and close October 2nd.

MainStage Adjudication/Application will be virtual this year with a deadline of December 1st.

Camp Thespis

To be held at Long Reach High School, Saturday, September 26th 9am-4pm, this leadership taining and network opportunity is for Thespian Troupe officers and leaders accross the state.

Registration closes Sept. 12. The cost is $25/student, which includes lunch. Registration form (including separate payment link): https://forms.gle/Sh22E5FxbRxfobft8

Please share this opportunity with your troupe’s student leaders! For this event, students can register and pay for themselves. (If you would like to register and pay for your students as a group, let us know and we can make that happen, too.) 

Thespys

• All Thespy submissions, except for Tech Categories, will remain virtual this year, so make sure to get an early start with your students!

• Make sure to help your students use the Approved Materials page to select eligible pieces. Ineligible pieces will not be adjudicated.

• Superior Thespys of inducted Thespians in each category (scoring an 18-20) may be invited to an in-person callback and be considered for inclusion in the Thespy Showcase. However, callbacks will be used as a Showcase audition and will not receive further adjudication/feedback this year.

• The only performance Thespys which might be scheduled for aditional, in-person, adjudication would be submissions which are identified as statistical scoring outliers or irregularities.

• Tech Thespys will remain live at the Festival on Friday, January 22nd.