Thespian Festival Updates

We have updated the menus on the website, www.MarylandThespians.org, and added an Updates page which will archive these informational emails so you can easily find them.

Our State Thespian Officers voted this weekend on a theme for Festival. It is “Two Masks, One Purpose”. They felt that this theme would express the collaborative and inclusive nature of Theatre Arts, as well as our desire to bring everyone together to celebrate each other’s passions and talents!

We have added a new Troupe Event this year - a Makeup Design Challenge! More info on the rules etc. coming soon!

Banners! We’re bringing it back!! Our long-time Troupe Directors might remember Troupe Banners, which were hung at festival once upon a time.
Troupe Banners are 3'x5', hanging vertically, and for $30 you can purchase your very own in the Registration system, under “Services”.
Once you add that service in registration, just send us a logo file with a min 978x1084px, that is <15MB. (example below)

After registering student(s) for a Thespy, you can upload their video to the registration system anytime before November 17th. (Both Performance and Tech Thespy submission must be in .mp4 format.)

Thespy submissions should not contain significant video editing. However, Tech Thespys may use “Zoom” recording, and/or screencast software etc. to best display / present their portfolio.

Please carefully review all Thespy Rules and Rubrics with your students. They can be found on Thespys.org.
Pay particular attention to the Rights & Licensing section and the Thespys Red- & Green-Light Lists found therein.
Sadly, selections from “SIX: Teen Edition” are Red-Lighted for now.

If you intend to bring a One Act to festival, you must submit the new Google Form to collect information and required documents.
Even if your One Act is registered in the system, your spot is not secure until the Google Form is submitted
With 19 performance opportunities (one of which is reserved for the previous year’s 1st place school), hopefully we will not need to turn anyone away. However, in the event that becomes necessary, the information in the Google Form will be used to determine order of submission and any registrations in the system that have not submitted the form will be removed to make room for those who have.

After surveying a number of directors, we found our colleagues to be pretty evenly split on the topic of “judging” and awards for the One Act festival. Many feel that - while we do take action to minimize both - the potential inconsistencies in adjudicators and performance spaces make for an unfair “competition”, and question the value in shows “competing” “against” each other at all.
That being said, many directors also recognize the realities we deal with in a world where our school communities and administrators don’t always know how to value our students’ efforts outside of that framework.
For 2024, we will be keeping the traditional 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place awards, however, we will also be honoring all troupes who earn a Superior, during the closing ceremonies.

Please provide at least a 2-week lead time when applying for Main Stage Adjudication so that we can arrange for in-person adjudication.