Jeff West HS Troupe 7245

1^st Year Troupe Receives Honor at State:

By Shawn Beuchat

Troupe Sponsor and Director of JW Theatre

The end of 2008 brought with it the close to the first complete year for Jeff West Troupe #7245, a new member to the International Thespian Society. The ITS runs by the calendar year not the school year, making our spring play the “season opener”.

The start of ‘09 also meant another trip back to the State Thespian Conference in Wichita to show off to the other 2000 students, what we as a troupe have been up to our first year. What was shown was Jeff West sending two students, Britany M, Junior; and Lucas S, Senior; as two of only forty qualifying Student State Board Representatives and a full year of theatre; enough to earn Troupe #7245 a Bronze Honor Troupe Award.

As part of their State Board Rep. duties, both Lucas and Britany were selected to perform on stage at Century 2 in front of the 2000 students in the house. Lucas S. performed in a Theatre Etiquette Skit before one of the main stage productions while Britany Morgan helped choreograph, teach, and perform in the main stage opening dance number.  

The troupe earned its Bronze Honor Troupe award by 1^st: Doing qualifying activities like; 2 shows in a season along with certain community service projects and fundraisers like Trick or Treat So Kids Can Eat raising food for the Jefferson Co. community and painting faces at our school’s carnival. 2^nd; These events then, all need to be recorded and documented in a Troupe Honor Book showing proof of the troupes activities. The 3^rd and final step in achieving the award is to have a troupe member present the troupe’s book in front of a panel of judges and explain the information in the book to them and basically sell the troupe to the judges as to why your troupe deserves this award. This year’s book was organized by troupe President, Britany M and troupe Historian, Amanda W.

The presentation of the book at State was done by Amanda W.

Of the 57 schools in attendance, approximately 18-20 received an Honor Troupe Status of Bronze, Silver, or Gold. Most of the troupes received Bronze with only a few being in the Silver or Gold category. Bronze is the highest level that our school’s troupe is qualified to receive because of the size of the program. State theatre is not sectioned by district size, meaning 1A-6A schools are all together and competing for the same awards and show performance spots on the main stage at the conference. Schools like: Blue Valley (insert compass direction of your choice here), Wichita Heights, Lawrence Free State, and Manhattan High to name a few. (Manhattan High performed on the main stage with a cast of 85 leaving over 20 of their performers at home.)  We were one of the smaller troupes, but be that as it may, for being a small fish in a very big pond, Jeff West Troupe #7245 has started off by making a pretty good splash with their first Bronze Honor Troupe Award.

While at state, students were able to attend several theatrically related workshops as well as 4 main stage performances done by the 4 top highest scoring fall productions.

The main stage shows were; The Secret Garden performed by Salina High South, The Exonerated performed by Blue Valley North High, Thoroughly Modern Millie performed by Manhattan High, and The Secret Lives of Girls performed by Blue Valley West. The Exonerated was adjudicated high enough at State to automatically qualify and will be going to the International Conference this summer in Nebraska.

Workshops that the students could attend included: Stage and Sabre/Sword Combat, Character Make-Up and Hat Construction, Comedy and Dance, Black Light Puppetry, Acting and Singing, Scene Painting and Styrofoam Carving, just to mention a few. Students could do late night activities and contests such as competing against other schools in Charades, Improvisation, Creative Costume, Pantomime to Music, or perform in a Talent Showcase or go to the Conference Dance. Jeff West was two of the teams entered in the Creative Costume Contest amongst 130 or so teams. Team 1 was Amanda W, Clara K, and Lucas S. Team 2 was Chris B. and Josh F. Students are given a bag of “scraps” and have 10 minutes to create and costume a character that fits the theme of the conference. This year’s theme? “Lions, Tigers, Thespians, ’09!”, so this meant the character had to have some type of Wizard of Oz theme. Jeff West was also represented at the Talent Showcase by Britany M, singing her rendition of “The Voice”.

Overall it was very rewarding and exciting experience for the new troupe members, who left this year’s conference already voicing opinions for next year on who needs to go to what workshop and which workshop and main stage shows were the best. Special thanks to Chaperone, Karla B. for assisting with students while Mr. Beuchat carried out his State Sponsor duties for the conference and to those helping Jeff West create a “Tradition of Excellence” in theatre.