Six Temple Students Advance to State Theatrical Design Finals

Six Temple theatre students advanced to the 2017 State UIL Finals in Theatrical Design. The winners will be announced on Friday, April 14 at the state meet.

The state finalist entries will be on display at the Raymond E. Hartfield (Round Rock ISD) Performing Arts Center located at 5800 McNeil Dr., Austin TX 78729. Exhibits will be open Wednesday, April 12 and Thursday, April 13 from 4 to 11 p.m., as well as Friday, April 14 from 4 to 10:30 p.m. The students will receive oral critiques during the day Friday. The awards will be announced after 6A play performances on Friday at approximately 10:30 p.m. Awards are give for 1st through 6th place.

In this year's contest, students were required to create designs for Into the Woods with the UIL requirements to "revive the story for our time" and to "make this musical relevant to millennial audiences."

The contest is broken into two divisions, with 5A and 6A schools competing in Division 2. First through sixth place awards are given in each division's categories.

This year's group entry focused on a film noir theme with an homage to German expressionism. Group members included Bianca Gutierrez (set design), James Equels (costumes), Bailee Poelker (hair and make-up) and Emma Tolleson (marketing).

Last year, Temple's group entry placed 3rd in the state. This year, they will compete against 13 other group entries. This is Poelker's second time to advance to the state finals, and Tolleson's third time to advance.

Joseph Espinoza also advanced to the state finals with his retro video game designs in individual marketing. Temple's individual marketing entry last year placed sixth in the state.

Ashlyn Medina advanced with her Bollywood designs for hair and make-up. Temple's individual hair and make-up entry last year (by Poelker) placed third in the state.

The designs will be on display April 12-14 at the Heartfield Performing Arts Center in Austin, and April 18-20 at the Wilhelm Performing Arts Center in Bastrop. This years's design contest started with 740 participants.