The largest theater festival in the country is happing on the TBPAC campus this week and it has made me nostalgic. The Florida State Thespian festival attracts over 7,000 students to Tampa with events at TBPAC and the Convention Center. For four days Thespians experience workshops, performances, adjudications and a collective feeling of “we’re not alone.”
I can remember looking forward to Thespian Festival when I was a teenager. I am a Fort Myers High School graduate (District 6, Troupe #334) and participated in Thespian State from 1990 – 1993 at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. It was truly the best four days of the year.
I was a drama nerd. A proud drama nerd! High school yearbook photos captured me behind light booths, up on scaffolding building sets, on stage performing, and my senior portrait depicts me proudly wearing the drama masks around my neck. I can’t say I didn’t fit in, I had friends and I think I was well-liked, I just never felt as “accepted” in my day-to-day high school life as I did at Thespian State Festival. Where all the drama nerds come to play.
As the week has gone by, I have isolated several “kinds” of Thespians. I have listed them in no particular order and they are universal archetypes, as apparent today as they were almost two decades ago (apologies to my fellow FMHS Thespians, I have named names. If you have a vanity Google alert on yourself you’re in for a surprise):
- Skinny jeans that have been written on with sharpie (our jeans had zippers on the ankles and a question mark on our butt)
- Leggings with a skirt (I can assure you personally the same look was worn at Thespian Festival 15 years ago)
- A boy(ish) individual wearing an ascot or scarf (Rhett Jonke, I think you wore an ascot to opening ceremony)
- Lots of couples who act as though if they stop holding hands they will be unable to breathe properly (I was that girl and Jeff Willis was that boy)
- Two girls singing “Popular” from Wicked on a street corner (in my day it was “Movie in My Mind” from Miss Saigon – you go Jessica Luallen!)
- A girl with black eye liner sobbing hysterically (Natasha Palumbo, what’s wrong?)
- Loitering (and hopeful) thespians standing outside of the HUB with a nonchalant look in their eye (I was there and whether or not I scored booze is not relevant to this post)
- A group of smokers with the defiant “I’m 18” look on their face (bad habit kids, don’t start, you’ll hate yourself 16 years later)
- Impromptu stage combat in an inappropriate place (I think I still have a scar from rug burn in Carol Morsani Hall, thanks Brett Williams)
- Old skool goth kids (we get older, they stay the same freaky, right Eric Autry?)
- The really pretty cheerleader who is obviously slumming it with the drama nerds (Hey, at least its a few days out of school, right Tonya Campbell?)
- Any ironic t-shirt – extra points if they celebrate someone’s Bat Mitzvah (Jenean Klein is the coolest!)
- Anyone participating in a “death off” – just die dramatically for no reason (subversive in your hometown mall, competitive sport at Thespian State, winner – Charlie Berfield)
- Lost chaperones (sorry, somebody’s mom, we forgot to tell you where to meet)
- Teacher caught chain smoking by the river (Mrs. Autry we knew you couldn’t hide from us forever!)
- Anyone writing on a napkin their Troupe # to put under the table glass at the Stage Door Café across the street (I can’t find mine anymore)
- Thespian jackets (I still have mine – well actually my mom has it)
- A group of 5 or more in matching T-shirts (My favorite this year? “I said THESpian!”)
- Someone staring at a wall and talking to it (in high school we’re crazy, here we’re just running lines)
- Overuse of the term “Super-superior” (yes, yes Randy Habovsky you always super-superior)
Times may change, but Drama Nerds have timelessness about them. I have enjoyed seeing my zeitgeists all over campus this week and will be sad to see them go tomorrow. Troupe #334 will be performing a one-act in the Ferguson tomorrow morning. I may just have to drag out of bed and go support my “Green Wave.” I am sure I will look at them and wonder: What will they become? What will they be inspired to do because they were here? What memories will they take with them?
For myself, I have embarked on a life in the arts. A theater degree from the University of Florida, a half-decade long adventure in Los Angeles, a career with The Second City and now a life at the very facility were many of my dreams began. I still have my Super-Superior ribbons, my programs from each year and a zippo I bought (in the lobby of the now Howard Johnsons nee Holiday Inn) with the comedy/tragedy masks engraved on them. Don’t smoke kids, seriously, it’s not cool.
Good luck Thespians, break legs, keep your drama in the theater and remember, no matter what you do in life – All the world’s a stage.
A wistful Kari G.
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