The Thespian Festival is an event hosted by Sarah Degrandpre, who used to be Big Sky High School’s theater teacher and director and is now the Montana State Thespian director, as well as some of the high school drama teachers.
Its objective is to show off all of the hard work that the people put into the thing they are passionate about and unite all of the high school theater students across Montana. It helps to bring together kids from all different places who love theater and the arts.
Luckily for Sentinel students, the event takes place in Missoula, Montana, but highschool theaters come from all across Montana to participate. It is held in the winter at the University of Montana’s ParTV building. The festival is normally held in February, however, this year it will take place on January 24th and 25th and last for two days. Friday is an all day experience starting at 8:00 for most students and ending around 10:00. The second day only lasts until the afternoon, but is still fully packed with entertainment and opportunities.
The Thespian Festival showcases one-act plays from nearly twenty schools around Montana, including Sentinel, Big Sky, and Hellgate. The shows each school performs vary from student directed to student written shows. Last year, Hellgate High School even performed a musical they wrote themselves. Sentinel’s performances are nearly always student directed, however, there have been a few that were written as well. Each school has 45 minutes to set up, perform, and take down their entire shows.
After each production, the school gets feedback on their shows. Each year the judges change, however, this year it will be given by the same ones as last year. Two members of the Missoula Children’s Theater, Abigail Gilbert, the Tour Logistics Associate and Social Media Specialist and Kelsey Seals the Tour Production Associate.
There are also many workshops or classes taught by some of the professors at the University. Occasionally, people will be flown in to direct them. Some of the more popular ones are the stage combat workshop and the costumes workshop.
On Friday night, a banquet is held for all of the students to have the opportunity to dress up if they wish and sit together for a buffet dinner. Awards are handed out, and scholarships are given to some of the people going to the University. After the dinner, there is a performance put on by the University’s theater and dance departments. Sometimes it is a play or musical and sometimes, like two years ago, it is a series of dances and songs.
On the second day there are the tech olympics, tongue twisters and death scenes. The tech olympics are aptly named as a competition for the stage technicians. Opposingly tongue twisters and death scenes are both acting events. In the tech olympics, each school sends in a team of students to perform different technical tasks such as rope tying, light programming, and costume changes. The teams are then scored on their time and accuracy.
In the acting events, a school puts in one student to perform. In the tongue twisters they choose a 60 second tongue twister and perform it for everyone at the event. They are ranked based on speed and clarity. Death scenes are an opportunity for the student to come up with their own original and creative way of dying in 90 seconds and show it to everyone.
Sentinel High School has taken a show to the event every year for as long as it’s existed. The one who began it was Margret Johnson, the woman the Sentinel theater is named after. The festival used to be held at Sentinel when it was first started. Johnson was the teacher and director of the Sentinel theater and the former director of Montana Thespians.
Sentinel’s upperclassmen thespians have the opportunity to go to Mrs. Cassidy, Sentinel’s theater teacher, and pitch an idea of a show they would like to perform. She will pick the play that she thinks is the best fit for the festival.
The event has, what is known to be, a very positive environment for the students who take part in it. While having awards and competitions, the Thespian Festival is not often competitive. Mrs. Cassidy said that the loving community is her favorite part of the festival. “I just love the supportive environment. That it’s not viewed as a competition, that students are cheering for each other.”
Each year, different schools get trophies for the shows that they perform; last year Sentinel students won 2 awards. Simon Montecillo, a current actor and member of the Spartan Scoop podcast team “Three Scoops of Who-Knows-What”, won an award for the Best Walk-on because of two cameo characters that he played in The Brothers Grimm Spectaculathon, directed by former Sentinel Theater president and Spartan Scoop reporter Andrew Buchholz.
Jasmine Eggert won Outstanding Physical Performance, having to run across the stage in order to play roughly five different characters.
Two years ago, Sentinel won an award for best makeup in their rendition of Why Do We Laugh? directed by Jatayo Jones; Andrew Buchholz took home the first place award for death scenes for the second year in a row that year.
On the second day of the festival, the State Thespian Board is elected. The state board consists of nine high school students across Montana who are nominated by their peers to represent their school. Each school decides on two representatives to run for the board; if a school already has a person on the board, that person can run again without filling one of the two spots.
The current board has two students from Hellgate, Izabella Schmidt and Kilian Kroenke, the president and vice president. The education liaison, Kaydence Gillroy, goes to C.M. Russel High. Cassidy Bradshaw is a festival liaison, a member of the board that helps to direct people on where to go and when, and she goes to Great Falls High. Rose Hogland, the secretary, is from Big Sky High School. Stina Oliver is another festival liaison and is from Bozeman High. June Forsythe is the social media coordinator from Capital High School.
The final two members of the State Thespian Board are both theater students at Sentinel and Spartan Scoop staff. Elizabeth Franzon is one of the Scoop’s web managers and the treasurer of the board. Lily Marmon is a festival liaison and reporter on the Spartan Scoop.
There has almost always been a Sentinel student on the board, but even if there is not, there is always a Missoula student because it is easier to coordinate with the University when they live nearby. At some Montana schools this is their one and only show and for many students the festival is the highlight of their year.
