BWW Blog: Hannah Love - GA Thespian Conference: A Weekend for the Books

This past weekend my high school theatre troupe attended Georgia Thespian Conference (We call it Thescon), and it was my first time experiencing the beauty of it all. When I asked my friends about their favorite memories, Hope Emerson said, "I loved just being able to be myself the whole time with all my friends, and no one judged because we were all there for the same reason- our love for theatre!" This made me think about the incredibleness of it all- how over 4,000 theatre kids in high school across the state came together to experience a weekend of workshops and watching several schools perform amazing shows.

When I wasn't meeting new people and seeing shows, I attended two workshops with my friends, CirqueShop and Yoga for the Creative Artist. In CirqueShop, I learned some of the basics of the aerial silks, which was super fun and if you're not in incredibly good shape, you'll be sore afterwards! We also did hand-to-hand tricks with partners and learned some cool moves to show off to some friends. The Cirque Shop was the most popular workshop to get into, and we got in line for it an hour ahead of time! Daniel Holder went to Puppetry 101, which provided actors with an insightful reminder that the puppets were not props, but they were actually characters. They had to use a variety of objects, including a toilet brush; then they had to use it as a character of a show, instead of going the easy way and making it a prop within the set. Claire Ayscue, a member of my theatre troupe, attended African Dancing and Swing Dance workshops. Some of the artists leading these workshops have had amazing experiences and love to share them with us fellow thespians. Mama Yeye, who led the African Dance workshop, performs in the Mardi Gras Parade and goes on tour while Jason Thomas Mayfield, who led the Swing Dance, goes around the country 3 months out of the year to teach master classes and was super fun! A friend of mine from another troupe, Tess Vreeland, also attended Mama Yeye's workshop. She explained to me, "I learned about different moves in African Dance and how it's all about freeing your body up to be thankful for all that you have. At the end we did salutations and thanked God for giving us our life and brushed all the negativity away so we could focus on what we loved most, and that was performing." I took this quote to heart because we should all be thankful to have the ability to experience what it's like to get on a stage and express art to audiences.

Besides the workshops, thespians were able to go to see shows in different theatres in Columbus, Georgia to witness schools in our state perform amazing shows. Last year, our troupe had the chance to perform Children of Eden in the Springer Opera House, and it's stuck with me ever since. Being an audience member is just as cool! My friend, Annabelle Pace, told me that one of her favorite memories of Thescon was seeing How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, performed by Calhoun High School. We sat front row in the Bill Heard Theatre and cheered the school on as they put on a wonderful production of the show! Their school also stayed in the same hotel as us during the weekend, so we chatted about how incredible it was to perform on the main stage of the conference! We also watched another school perform Hairspray in the Bill Heard and even ran into half the cast at lunch afterwards. Although we didn't sit front row for Jekyll and Hyde, this school's talent blew me away. The show is one of my favorites though I've only ever listened to the music, so finally getting to see it was absolutely breathtaking. It's surreal to think about how all the shows performed during the duration of these three days were put on by kids just like us living in the same state as us.

One of my favorite things during the conference was meeting other theatre kids. Some kids had created hug pins, where when you hug someone, you trade hug pins with them and get to maybe talk to them and learn something new! Sometimes when you met someone new, they'd have pins from other people in your troupe or pins you made that got traded around so much! My friend CayCay Kelly and I walked around the streets of Columbus and connected with many kids through various social medias and promised to stay in touch. We talked about previous shows we've performed, and one girl commented on how she saw our school perform Children of Eden last year and thanked us for performing. It was incredible to think that someone saw us perform and was impacted by our show. The little conversations I had with random stranger theatre kids this weekend not only will stick with me for many years, but also reminded me that there is so many guys and girls that I don't even know that share the same passion as me and accept me for that without even knowing me.

This weekend was one of the most amazing experiences I've ever had during my years of theatre, and many of my friends would say the same thing. We would like to thank our wonderful State Thespian Officers for creating an unforgettable event. I can't wait for next year when I get to relive this weekend all over again and make many new memories with new geeky thespians like me. Trying new workshops and seeing new shows with different schools is a year a way, and is it dorky of me to already be counting down until Thescon 2017?