Every February, thousands of high school Thespians attend Georgia Thespian Conference, an event for performing arts students across the state. ThesCon hosts a wide variety of events in one weekend. From watching the best shows across Georgia high schools to participating in performance and technical workshops to receiving awards and scholarship opportunities, ThesCon has an activity for everyone. 

This year, 55 Midtown students are attending ThesCon. This has been a substantial increase from previous years, and Midtown has introduced a waitlist and lottery system for interested freshmen. Freshman Zoe Norwood is attending the conference this year, and said she was inspired by other students who had gone before. 

“I decided to go to Thespian Conference because I heard a lot of it from my friends, and wanted to meet other theatre kids from all over Georgia,” Norwood said. “I’ve heard a lot about all of the events and workshops you can go to, and I’m most excited to try out different workshops and new skills in theatre.”

At the conference, students have the opportunity to participate in a wide variety of workshops, including dance, vocal performance, acting, improvisation, technical design, construction, lights, art and more. Senior Naomi Kester said she loves creative, unique workshops.  

“I think one of my favorite parts is finding workshops that you didn’t think you would like that change your whole perspective,” Kester said. “Just those workshops that are iffy and then you go to them and you’re like, ‘Wow, this opens up a whole new avenue for me.’ Freshman year it was “Stone Soup”, a workshop where you sat and drew an image, and then you put together the images from everyone in the class and you make this piece of performance art with different tableaus. That was really influential on my writing journey, which is now something I want to pursue as a collegiate major, so I think that was a very pivotal workshop for me.”

In addition to the workshops and shows, there are multiple optional programs that students attending ThesCon can choose to participate in. Examples include an Improv Challenge, the Film Festival, a Quiz Bowl Competition, Performance and Tech Thespys and the Backstage Challenge. Senior Kate Wasick is a part of Midtown’s Quiz Bowl team. 

“I used to do Quiz Bowl in middle school, and I love learning, history and theatre, so it seemed in my wheelhouse,” Wasick said. “At ThesCon last year, I watched the Quiz Bowl competition, and it seemed like a much more fun, flexible, low-stakes version of what I was used to. I think our team is passionate about doing well and right off the bat it seemed like we had a high chance of doing well in the competition.”

Midtown’s Quiz Bowl team participated in the official preliminary round in January, determining whether they would move on to the live competition at ThesCon. Questions range from musical knowledge to Greek mythology to historical playwrights to theatre marketing terms and information about ThesCon itself. Kester is also on the Quiz Bowl Team, and said their team specialized in different topics to cover all of the material. 

“So far, our team has split the study guide into four different sections, and each of us takes on a couple of categories that we’re going to specialize in studying wise,” Kester said. “My section is musicals and basically all that stuff, so I’ve been studying jukebox musicals and different musicals by decade. I’ve also been looking at songs from different musicals and memorizing lyrics and stuff like that.”

The preliminary round consisted of a multiple choice Quizizz, an online trivia website, with multiple high school teams competing for their spot in the live ThesCon round. Wasick compared the process to her prior experience in Quiz Bowl. 

“We just had to do a Quizizz with 129 questions, so speed and accuracy both mattered for our score, like in quiz bowl,” Wasick said. “However, unlike quiz bowl, we all worked together as a group and could discuss our thoughts out loud, each group was doing this simultaneously in a room, and the questions were multiple choice instead of open-ended. We got about 72% accuracy on the Quizizz with minimal studying, and with the amount of groups present, we were worried about advancing.”

Midtown scored second at the preliminary round, and will be moving on to the live ThesCon competition. Kester said she’s excited for their team and believes they can do well. 

“Based on the preliminary round, I am hopeful, especially with placing second,” Kester said. “That gives us a lot more confidence than what we had going in. I think our strengths are definitely playwrights and the history of the different plays that are on the study guide. We just need to kind of lock in on theater marketing, we dropped the ball a bit there in the preliminary round. I’m excited to see how our studying pays off against these other teams, and kind of how much they’ve prepared as well when we go head to head.”

Students attending ThesCon also have the chance to submit ‘Thespys,’ an opportunity to receive constructive feedback on prepared theatrical material and technical designs. Thespy preliminaries are submitted and judged prior to ThesCon. From these, those who receive overall superiors are called back for an in-person audition and several are selected to perform in the closing showcase for everyone in attendance. Multiple Midtown students submitted Thespys this year, including junior Rowan Wang, who submitted her original choreography to “Falling Slowly” from the musical “Once.” 

“I wanted to submit a Thespy because I thought it could be a new and fun way to showcase my dancing,” Wang said. “First, I had to find a song that fit the qualifications for the Thespy, then I choreographed a solo to it and then I screened it at a Drama Club meeting for students and our theatre teachers. Then, once I was selected [out of the Midtown auditioners], I was able to get and review feedback on my Thespy [from our teachers] based on the rubric provided, and a month later I submitted my final video to the judges.”

Kester also submitted a performance Thespy with senior Gianna Soave. The two performed “Take Me or Leave Me” from “RENT.” Kester said the process of putting the song together and filming taught her about both auditions and collaboration. 

“I have definitely learned a lot about filming and recording auditions,” Kester said. “I think I’ve also learned a lot about how to work well with a partner, and [Soave] is so easy to work with, she’s just awesome. I loved doing the song with her, no matter the outcome. I think we really learned to listen to each other and how to bounce off of each other and fully collaborate without having to have a director tell us what to do. It was like finding the natural instincts of the scene, and really digging into doing character work and thinking ‘What would my character do right now, because this feels too stiff and I don’t think my character would do this, so let’s try something different.’ Just playing around with the song was really meaningful.”

Wang said that her results reminded her about the importance of confidence in your craft, despite the opinions of others. 

“From the process and specifically my results, I learned more about how subjective the dance world can be, and art in general,” Wang said. “Two of the judges gave me really high scores, but one gave a score way lower than the others, and some of the feedback given contradicted itself. But it also helped my confidence in myself because even if one person didn’t like something I did or the way I performed something, at the end of the day what matters is how I choose to dance.”

Senior Marissa Rainey submitted a technical Thespy, in which she presented her scenic designs for the play “Horse Girls,” which was put on by the Advanced Drama class in December with Rainey as the Technical Director. 

“A lot of people do a scenic design of a show that’s not produced, but I got to do a show that was produced in Advanced Drama, so it was really fun to make a model for a show I was also tech directing in class,” Rainey said. “The process starts with a lot of research and dramaturgy, and then I had to make a scale-grand plan, a budget for materials and how much the set would cost, and I had to record the presentation and make my scale model. I submitted my video in early January, and sometime last week I got the callback. So on Friday [of ThesCon], I have to present for a panel of judges. I’m super excited for that.” 

ThesCon also offers scholarship opportunities for those interested in pursuing theatre in college. Rainey also applied for these scholarships in early December. 

“When you apply, you aren’t applying for one specific scholarship because there’s like 13,” Rainey said. “There are some that are clearly performance and there are some that are clearly tech, but then there are some that are in between like leadership, which could be a stage manager or an actor showing leadership. So I told them I was a technical person and had to submit a short presentation with the highlights of my portfolio, I had to give them a resume and do two short responses about ‘what I like about being a Thespian.’” 

Rainey was the only Atlanta Public Schools student called back for a possible scholarship. 

“I submitted that in December, and when I got my callback last week, I also got called back for scholarships,” Rainey said. “The list of people called back is like 25 people, and none of them were from APS, most are from performing arts schools. My callback is Friday and I basically bring my whole portfolio and do an interview with them, then I assume by the end of ThesCon they’ll announce who gets the scholarships. There’s 13 scholarships and 25 called back, so about half of us will get them. They’re all $2000, except for the big one which is $2500.” 

ThesCon serves as a place for students to explore their creative interests and to better their theatrical and technical skills. Wasick said the experience has been a highlight of her high school career. 

“I love ThesCon because of the freedom to pick which workshops you attend and the sense of collective effervescence at many of the events,” Wasick said. “ThesCon has so many opportunities; it’s such a positive and memorable experience, and I’m sad to be calling it my second and last time going.”