I was honored to attend the Nevada State Conference last weekend. During the course of the weekend, I saw outstanding student work, high quality guest artists and workshop leaders, and a state board that was just enjoying the heck out of themselves! (It's also worth mentioning that, even though fire alarms went off again and again in the middle of IE's and a guest artist's performance, the entire delegation rolled with it, and got right back into action when we were cleared to re-enter campus.)
Here are some particularly steal-worthy things that Nevada is doing:
All STO candidates wore Mickey ears (in line with the festival theme) - this made them easy to spot throughout the weekend, and helped the board to recognize their work, facilitating the election conversation.
A local artist writes and directs an hour-long Opening Number, which was performed by students from across the state. They rehearsed the day before festival started, and performed for the delegation during the first all festival assembly. The number was an original script that parodied several well known musicals (Les Mis, Annie, Legally Blonde...).
The festival was mostly paperless; delegates used Guidebook to explore their workshop options. Paper schedules were posted in a central location.
The STO's held a selfie competition - essentially a photo scavenger hunt - which included items like "a picture of you with the EdTA rep" "a Troupe president (doesn't have to be yours)," "you with a book," which engaged students while they weren't in workshops.
In addition to college scholarships, Nevada provides a scholarship for students who earn perfect scores on their IE's to help them get to International Festival.
There were a plethora of diverse performance and playwrighting workshops offered throughout the weekend.
It was truly a pleasure to attend this event on behalf of the EDTA, and I hope I get to go again!