At the Kansas Thespian Festival, students can participate in a variety of workshops, compete against schools in different late-night events, perform a thespy to get adjudicated, and watch shows from different schools and districts all over Kansas. This year, Frozen, an Olathe School District production, was performed for the entirety of the festival. Olathe East had 7 students in the musical and had numerous students on the crew. 

“It was truly an amazing experience unlike anything I’ve ever had, performing in front of a crowd of 2000 was beyond fulfilling and made me so happy,” Junior, Devin Cunagin who played Kristoff said.

A Thespy is an educational program that offers Thespians the opportunity to receive constructive feedback on prepared theatrical material and technical designs. After you get adjudicated, your scores are put into 4 different levels, fair, good, excellent, and superior being the highest. Olathe East had 11 thespians bring back superior performances, Evelyn Welter for monologue, Sydney Carter, Cassandra Mojica, Audrey Bryant, Lily Bryant, Luke Peterson, Devin Cunagin, Brianna Frohning, Caroline Kelley, Delainey Mock, and Avery Valentine for solo musical. They all will be able to compete at the International Thespian Festival in Indiana in the summer. 

There is a final day ceremony and award show where they hand out different scholarships and announce the placements for the one-act plays. Senior, Sydney Carter, won a performance Thespian scholarship award. How To Kiss A Girl, a one-act that was put on by the Acting Repertory Theatre class along with a few other students, was performed and judged to be in consideration for nationals. The one-act placed 2nd out of 14 schools from different parts of Kansas. 

It was another overall successful trip for OE Theatre.