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Students at IHOP

From March 27-29, a small group of Park Players spent time down in Huntington, WV, at Marshall University for the state Thespian Festival, to immerse themselves in the arts.

This was the first time that The Park Players had gone to a state thespian festival. Without having an experience like this before, students didn’t quite know what they should expect about ThesFest, but this led to lots of fun, surprising opportunities for them to enjoy.

“I think watching all of the one act plays was really fun. It was fun to watch some of the best young actors in the state perform, and I was definitely judging them in my head,” said Ireland Witchey.

Watching the competing one acts was a large portion of ThesFest. Along with that, though, students were able to participate in workshops. These had a variety of skills to learn, such as stage lighting, stage singing, dance, songwriting, knot tying, monologues, and stage combat.

“The most fun I had on this trip was the sword fighting class that I took,” said Reagan Pockl.

Again, The Park Players haven’t had an experience like this before, and students had some realities differ from their expectations, but not necessarily in a bad way.

“I expected the amount of people doing this to be a lot less, but it’s actually a huge competition and that’s really cool,” said Pockl.

Along with the amount of people, students had many options to choose from for they wanted to do instead of having to stick to a solid schedule.

“I was expecting us to have a schedule that was set in stone, but in reality, there was a lot more freedom and we were able to go do or see what we were interested in,” said Witchey.

When the activities at ThesFest came to a pause, Dr. Romick, Mrs. Redd, and Mrs. Schultz took students to different places to explore. These places included The Inner Geek bookstore, and then on the way home, a stop at Hillbilly Hot Dogs for lunch.

Even though the trip was only three days, students had a vast amount of opportunities to experience and they truly took advantage of this.