Montezuma-Cortez RE-1 School District’s middle school and high school theater programs will travel to Denver for ThesCon, a thespian conference for Colorado students in the theater arts.
The middle school students will be at ThesCon from Wednesday and Thursday and will travel back to Cortez as the MCHS students arrive for the high school part of the conference on Thursday. The middle school is taking around 15 students, and the high school will take 40 students, 30 of whom will compete in drama-style competitions throughout the weekend.
“This is the largest number of participants we’ve ever had, so we’re really excited about that,” high school theater director Nicholaus Sandner said.
Sandner shared that he attended ThesCon when he was in high school, and that the conference is hosting its 59th year.
The first event the theater students will participate in is the conference’s two main stage performances. In this event, two high schools from the state are selected to perform their theater program for all attendees at ThesCon. The two plays that will be performed are “Noises Off” and “Mean Girls: The Musical,” according to Sandner. The first will take place on Thursday evening and the second on Friday evening.
The conference will also have a keynote speaker, Broadway veteran and Tony nominee Kate Baldwin.
Throughout the weekend, students will be able to attend various workshops and competitions going on throughout the conference center, with as many as 15 workshops being run each session.
“They’ve got all kinds of different competition things going on from monologues to solo singers to group singers and group scenes. One-act plays being performed and teach presentations,” Sandner said.
MCHS’s improv troupe will be competing against other improv troupes on Saturday in 15-minute sets.
During COVID-19, Sandner said ThesCon was held virtually and the MCHS improv team ended up winning in one of the improv categories.
“We’ve had some students who have scored really well and have qualified for the national competition,” Sandner said. “I know we had a group of middle schoolers who went to the international competition last summer.”
There are also six different sets of students doing musical duets and a couple monologues, as well as a tech presentation and scenic design presentation.
A few MCHS solo singers will also compete before the award ceremony and the conference’s end. At the award ceremony, awards will be presented to those who won or placed in their selected competitions.
Before heading back home, Sandner said the group will spend Saturday night at MeowWolf, an eclectic and interactive art museum.
Sandner also mentioned that auditions will be held on Dec. 11 and 12 for MCHS’ upcoming play Hello Dolly, and auditions are open to members of the community who wish to be involved, not just high school students.
“If people want to come to those auditions, they are welcome to,” Sandner said. “We usually have some families who come and get involved, so we’ve got their kids and sometimes they’ll have mom and dad and sometimes we’ll have grandparents. Generations involved in the show.”
