Temple Thespians Excel at State Convention and Contests

Temple High Thespians were very successful during the annual Texas Thespian State Convention, including winning two state championships. The competition was held November 15-17, 2018, at the Gaylord Texan in Grapevine, TX. There were over 8,200 people attending, including 283 high school and 47 middle school Thespian troupes.

All eight events (100% success) that Temple entered were judged Superior (the highest possible score) and will advance to the International Thespian Festival competition next June in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Both the Team Set Design (Ashlyn Farley, Izzy Poehlmann, Kerryn Eckenrode and D'Andre Wright) and Team Mask Making (Rebecca Alley, Kylie Burke, Olivia Cabrera and Morgan Madsen) teams won the State Championship in their contests. In the team events, students do not know in advance what show or theme they would be designing for, and they had two hours to complete their designs.

Four of the technical entries — Sound (Michael Jones), Costumes (Brianna Alexander), Set Design (Izzy Poehlmann) and Theatre Marketing (Joseph Espinoza) — were all selected as callback finalists to be displayed on the huge video screens during the closing ceremonies. These students went through two rounds of judging.

Izzy Poehlmann won a $1000 scholarship from Texas Thespians and had over 26 callbacks from colleges and universities who were very interested in her and her design talents.

Troupe President Sierra Amalbert was one of only 35 students in Texas selected to perform at the closing ceremonies with Annaleigh Ashford, Tony award winner, who has appeared on Broadway in Wicked (Glinda), Legally Blonde (Margo), Kinky Boots (Lauren) and a revival of You Can't Take It With You.

PHOTOS: CLICK HERE to see a Facebook Photo Album from the state convention.