Temple Advances More To Nationals Than Any School

Temple High theatre students had great success at the Texas State Thespian Festival held November 15-18 in Grapevine. The convention had 7892 people in attendance (students, teachers, and chaperones).

Out of the 280 troupes at convention, Temple was one of 10 schools named an All-Star Troupe. Temple was also named one of the three finalists for the 2016-17 Outstanding Troupe award. The group performed the comedy Wonder of the World in front of a standing-room-only audience, with Adara Felix being named Outstanding Supporting Actress for all marathon plays. Adara and Robert Solar both received $1000 Texas Thespian Scholarhips.

All 10 Temple individual events received superior ratings and advanced to the national competition held June 25-30, 2018 in Lincoln, Nebraska. No other troupe in the entire state had that many entries advance. These events included group musical (Sierra Amalbert, Callie Ortega, Adara Felix, Rebecca Alley, Olivia Cabrera, Allison Quiroz and Alante Anderson), duet acting (Morgan Madsen, Kerynn Eckenrode), duet acting (Gabe Salazar, D’Andre Wright), solo musical (Kaiya Fowler), solo musical (Arreyon Blocker). scenic design (Izzy Poehlmann), lighting design (Ricardo Fontanez), costume design (Brianna Alexander), sound design (Michael Jones) and theatre marketing (Seth Little).

In the Texas Team events, Temple won first place in the state for team mask making. The team included Grace Mellette, Adara Felix, Callie Ortega, and Olivia Cabrera.

Pictured at left are Anaiya Harris and Bailee Poelker with their Team Make-Up and Hair Design entries in the Texas team events. At right is a photo of the first place winner in Team Mask Making. At the top right is Sierra Amalbert, who found her doppelgänger on a poster at the convention.

The troupe made the front page of the Temple Daily Telegram on November 28, 2017: