Fifty students from Fossil Ridge High School’s theatre department attended the 53rd annual Thespian Conference in Denver, Colorado on December 7-9. At the convention, students had the opportunity to attend sessions and learn how to improve their skills in acting, dancing, musical theatre, technical theater, and playwriting. Students also performed individual events to be scored in front of judges – if they did well enough, they would qualify for the International Thespian Conference, which will take place in June of 2018 in Lincoln, Nebraska. Seven Fossil students qualified for Nationals this year: Morgan Schramm, Marin Stumpf, Nic Rhodes, and Sophie Contino for musical solos, Will Martella for acting, Gabby Actor for marketing, and Ayden Adair for short film.

Actor, a senior, in order to qualify for Nationals, gave a presentation of what she did for marketing for Fossil’s production of Radium Girls, and will give an extended presentation in June. Actor also presented on the main stage, and enjoys going to the convention because of all the opportunities for growth she comes across while there. Rhodes, another senior, was one out of six students who received a callback out of 1600 total individual events, meaning that she was in top categories for a critics choice award. Rhodes called it, “an amazing experience and a huge honor.” This year marks the third year that Contino has qualified for Nationals. About this, she said, “If I’m honest I practiced my song only two times before competing. I think it all comes down to stage presence.”

The Thespian Conference also has dances for the theatre kids, where they can meet people in theatre departments from all across Colorado. Actor said, “I also love getting to spend time with the people in my troupe as well as meeting people from other schools since we’re all there because we love theatre.”

The next Fossil theatre event will be One Acts, showing in April. Auditions for the Spring Musical, Big Fish, are this week, and the cast list will be posted on Friday, December 15.