Definitely start a troupe! It provides so many opportunities for your students. The specifics on the competitions vary by state, so I'd contact your state board to get specific info on what is available for you... and of course ITF (International Thespian Festival) is a great option as well.
At our school we have weekly meetings for the club, and the officers meet once a week separately as well. The meetings vary weekly. Some weeks the kids have housekeeping and paperwork, other weeks we work on set and/or fabrication for the upcoming production, and still other weeks we focus on a technical aspect or performance element for people to work on. The advanced students use this time to mentor the younger/less experienced members of the club.
We are a long established club on our campus and the kids are the driving force in what happens. They have discussions on housekeeping days and then follow through on activity days. This year they decided to up the number of shows they see together (we're only allowed 1 field trip per semester), so they looked up the dates and shows other high schools are producing and voted on which they wanted to go to as a group.
Basically all of my tech crews for my shows (minus the student production crew - which I invite students to participate in for an individual show) comes from my ITS troupe. It's a big incentive for students to stay actively involved... and the crew gets their own show shirt (the graphics match but the kids are separated by individual crew like the cast is by character) so the kids really feel like an important part of the program.
So, to basically reiterate, go for it!
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Shira Schwartz
Chandler Unified School District
Chandler AZ
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Original Message:
Sent: 03-01-2018 13:17
From: Craig Cohan
Subject: Starting a Troupe
I was thinking of starting a troupe for our high school. I was wondering what all happens. Are there competitions? What are the events that I have looked through? What does one do? How often do troupe events occur? etc. etc. Any and all info would help. Thanks!
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Craig Cohan
English and Drama Teacher
Fairview Park City Schools
Olmsted Falls OH
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