Each year, Texas Thespians host a state-wide festival which includes over 8,200 attendees. This year, students and their troupe directors will celebrate an entire weekend of theatre November 21-23 at the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center in Grapevine.
   Temple High will present a shortened version of the play Wilderness that students performed in October at Meridith-Dunbar Auditorium. Temple's performance is Saturday, November 23, at 8:30 a.m. in Room Texas C on the 3rd level of the convention center.
   Student will compete in the International Thespian Excellence Awards (Thespys™ for short). which is an educational program that offers Thespians the opportunity to receive constructive feedback on prepared theatrical material and technical designs. A panel of judges rate the entries with superior as the top possible score. Last year, all eight Temple entries received superior ratings.
   For the group musical contest, students will be performing "Snuff That Girl" from Urinetown. Competing students include Terry Austin, Liam Bro, Kerynn Eckenrode, Jacob Edwards, Jonathan Equels, Cameron Hooper, Erica Lynch, Austin Madsen, Genevieve Myers, Macy Parks, Allie Quiroz, Michael Rodriguez and Mimansha Shrestha.
   Sereniti Patterson will perform "Easy As Life" from Aida in the solo musical competition.
   Torrie Culp, Alexander Gontscharow and Julia Prather will compete in group acting with a scene from Arabian Nights. A second group acting team will include Alyssa Amador, Jasmin Buckner, Matthew Harris and Jacoah Grey, and will perform a scene from Triage.
   Daniel Salazar will enter his original video "Thirst" in the short film (five minutes) contest.
   Entries in the technical Thespys contests include Kylie Burke (theatrical marketing), Olivia Cabrera (makeup design), Ricardo Fontanez (lighting design) Michael Jones (sound design) and Morgan Madsen (scenic design).
   Texas-only team technical events include:
     Team Costume Design: Dacey Dulaney, Jillian Knox, Audrey Portillo and Lauren Bruckbauer.
     Team Set Design: Amy Alarcon, Kerynn Eckenrode, Penelope Gonzalez and Allie Quiroz.
     Team Hair and Makeup Design: Baylee Black, Jonathan Equels, Macy Parks and Julia Prather.
     Team Mask Making: Kylie Burke, Olivia Cabrera, Morgan Madsen and Kelsi Seiter.
Last year, Temple won the state championships in team set design and team mask making.
   The Texas Tech Challenge is a series of timed events that are designed to test the knowledge of basic skills that every technician should have. Tech Challenge team members include Terry Austin, Jacob Edwards, Kayla Ezaqui, Colin Fowler, Penelope Gonzalez, Jacoah Grey and Connor Harty.

Temple High Theatre's murder mystery dinner theatre, Murder, Actually, will perform Thursday, November 7 at 7 p.m., and Sunday, November 10 at 1 p.m. in the high school main cafeteria. A listing of the cast and production staff is available on the show's Information Page (click here). Tickets include the meal and are $15 in advance and $20 at the door. Tickets are available from students or from CentralTexasTickets.com

It's the fall of 1908 at the stately Withering Heights Estate. It’s the weekend of Catherine (Kerynn Eckenrode) and Algernon’s (Cameron Hooper) wedding, and no one is happy about it — not the bride and bridegroom, not the family, not the neighbors, not the servants, not even the entertainment — the Roving Society of Poets and Yoemen. But especially not Algernon’s brother, Heathcliff (Austin Madsen), and his friend, Lady Virginia (Genevieve Myers), who have raced home from their world travels to be at the wedding. Strange things start happening, and it appears the wedding is off. But maybe all is not what it seems?

Below are photos by Mimansha Shrestha taken at a rehearsal on Tuesday, November 5, 2019

More rehearsal photos are posted for the troupe's Facebook page.

The following article by Melany Cox appeared in the Temple Daily Telegram on November 7, 2019:

Because of construction in the fine arts section, Temple High School's first theatre production of the school year will be performed at Meridith-Dunbar Auditorium, 1717 E Avenue J, Temple, TX 76501. Performances are Thursday-Saturday, October 3-4-5 at 8 p.m. with a Sunday matinee on October 6 at 2 p.m. Tickets are $8 in advance, $10 at the door. The play contains adult language. Advance tickets are available from students and also online at CentralTexasTickets.com. There are also plans to be able to offer credit card sales at the door.

     A moving multimedia documentary theatre piece, Wilderness speaks to our collective search for connection and hope as families survive the extraordinary pressures and complexities that accompany coming of age in 21st Century America.
     The play is anchored by six real families’ stories — narratives that involve issues of mental health, addiction, and gender and sexual identity, inspired by firsthand interviews and field research conducted over an 18-month period. The six teens stand at the brink of emotional chaos, lost in social stigma, insecurity, aggression and anger. Anguished grown-ups and troubled children all search for answers to complicated problems.
     Cole (Matthew Harris) has anger issues and experiments with drugs, once climbing an 80-foot crane while high. Chloe (Kerryn Eckenrode) took to self-harm as an escape from online bullying. Dylan (Anna Gontscharow) is transgender, and began lying pathologically as a way of coping with the trauma of coming out. Michael (Cameron Hooper) is dealing with issues of anger and violence. Sophia (Torrie Culp) deals with severe anxiety and suffers from panic attacks. Elizabeth (Genevieve Myers) is a young woman who deals with her anger management issues through recreational drugs.
     A character simply called Mom (Olivia Cabrera) offers a parental perspective. Her son has barricaded himself in his room and won’t communicate. She makes a series of frantic phone calls, seeking help first from emergency services, then from the wilderness program. Between calls, she interviews parents of teens who are played by Temple school administrators and faculty members.
     The teens relate their stories in fragments, as they hike, set up camp, attend therapy sessions and argue with their counselors. The program is demanding, beginning when the teens are “gooned”: kidnapped with their parents’ permission, then flown to a remote part of Utah, where they sleep on the ground and traipse through the backcountry with gear on their shoulders. Such stark challenges bring underlying emotional struggles to the forefront.

UPDATE: CLICK HERE for a YouTube video produced by Wildcat Films about the show.

Full cast and production staff members are listed on the WILDERNESS Information Page.