Special Discount for Thespians

Hey Thespians! Show your event badge at the Straz Center Ticket Office to purchase tickets to any GODSPELL performance, April 8-11, for just $8.75! This is a fully updated and modernized production you don't want to miss.

Offer includes service charges. One discounted ticket per badge. Not applicable to prior sales. Subject to availability. Cannot be combined with any other offer.

Florida State Thespian Festival

It’s that time of year again – the Florida State Thespian Festival. For the next 4 days the Straz Center and the Convention Center will be hosting 7200 young artists as they perform, compete, learn and participate in one of the largest theater festivals in the world.

This phenomenon has garnered so much attention that there has even been a movie made about it.

Being here and being a part of the Thespian Festival is something I have written about before. As a former Florida State Thespian, (go Troupe #334 – represent!) I have so many fond memories of this week. I try not to think about how many years have gone by since I hopped off the bus and onto the grounds of the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center (as it was called back then) and performed in Festival Hall (now the Morsani Hall) and the Playhouse (now the Ferguson). I remember every show I saw, every class I took, every boy I flirted with just because they were from another school.

I remember being blown away by a production of Noises Off by Bolles High School. I remember falling in love with a production of Eleemosynary (a show I would later perform and direct, twice). I remember taking my first real improvisation workshop (I would later go on to perform for The Second City). And I remember stealing a kiss by the river with a boy whose name has drifted away.

It was always the best week of high school.

When you’re growing up, it’s so important to “fit in” and be accepted by your peers. I think I can speak to many of us in the arts that growing up, we never felt like we “fit in” anywhere. We were easy to spot in high school: We walked in small packs through the hallways hoping for safety in numbers. We ate in the corner of the cafeteria, if we ate in the cafeteria at all. Our hair changed colors, our clothes had copious numbers of safety pins, and our conversations were peppered with Monty Python references and snippets of songs. We represented the Island of Misfit Toys.

But once a year, we got to run away to Tampa. For those of us from small towns, it was mind blowing to walk amongst the skyscrapers and witness a “real” downtown. Everywhere we looked we saw ourselves. We met people who were just like us and we were all encouraged to be different. We were encouraged to celebrate our eccentricities, to embrace our strangeness, to channel our creativity. Florida State Thespians was our oasis. We could sing as loud as we wanted, perform stage combat in the street, wear matching t-shirts with our troupe number on them, sweat it out waiting to find out, would we super superior?

I cannot express how critical arts education and arts experiences were to my personal development and how important it will be to the development of this next generation of artists. The experiences they will have, the friendships they will make, the different ideas, mediums, and genres they will learn about will make them more rounded, more thoughtful people. It will make a difference. It can’t be taught in a classroom or out of a book. It is a visceral, mind-blowing, life-changing event. If you think I’m over stating it, come on down here and witness it for yourself.

To any Thespians who might be reading this, welcome. Enjoy yourselves, learn as much as you can and be 100% authentic in your skin. We are so happy to have you here and we hope that maybe someday you’ll come back and make this performing arts center your home. Take one of your free nights and see Godspell in the Jaeb or Jobsite Theater's Pericles in the Shimberg. There are Florida Thespian Alums in both casts and they'd be more than happy to talk to you after the show. And don’t do anything stupid while you’re here. Those of us who have been to Festival know all the tricks and all the hiding places and we’re watching. ;)

-Kari G.

Thespians - get a $5 ticket to see WAISTWATCHERS!

In town for the Florida State Thespian Festival? You can get a ticket to see any performance of WAISTWATCHERS: The Calorie Free Musical this week for just $5 with your conference badge at the TBPAC Ticket Office window as of 90 minutes to curtain.

Take advantage!

Welcome, Thespians!

Today they start trickling in, tomorrow that trickle will be a solid stream. By tomorrow night it will be a full-on river as some 7,000+ theatrical invaders will descend upon Downtown Tampa as part of the Florida State Thespian Festival.

You can check out these other posts on the festival, and I'm sure we'll add more this week.

Also, if you're a conference attendee and you're looking for something extra - you can get a $5 ticket to see Waistwatchers: The Calorie-Free Musical for ANY show this week. A $1.50 service charge applies, and those tickets will be made available as of 90 minutes to curtain by showing your conference badge at the TBPAC Ticket Office window.

Welcome to Tampa!

You can also follow us on Twitter or Myspace (tbpac), become a fan of Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center or join the TBPAC group on Facebook.

Florida State Thespian Festival 2008

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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Welcome, Thespians!

It's that time again - Downtown Tampa is crawling with thousands and thousands of high school dramaphiles - all here to perform, learn and of course have a good time away from home for a week.

State Thespian Festival was always a highlight of my high school years, and was a primary reason I ended up in Tampa.

For those of you who may be here and stuck high and dry after your events have sold out, or if you;re looking for something different - we're offering $5 tickets to all performances of Cigar City Chronicles: A musical history of Tampa if you show your festival badge at the Ticket Office window as of 30 minutes to any curtain.

The show is only here for TWO MORE WEEKENDS, so take advantage.

Enjoy!

-dj