UHS Theater Troupe 4848 is thrilled to announce that their musical production of Newsies has been selected to be a MainStage performance at the Florida State Thespians Festival in Tampa.
While the troupe consistently earns a spot in the State competition, this is the first time that they have been honored with an invitation to perform on the main stage. “I am so excited to do MainStage for Newsies. It will be such an amazing experience to be able to revisit this wonderful project because I love the people I worked with, I love the storyline, and I just love everything about the show,” said senior Chloe Christiansen.
The event will be held in March of 2024 where students will perform the entire show for an audience of nearly 3,000 fellow thespians at the Straz Center for the Performing Arts.
The Theater department will have to rent two trucks in order to transport the sets for reconstruction at the event. It’s a lengthy process in total- to first pack the sets up, then load them onto trucks for the trip, unpack everything upon arrival, build it, and finally perform. The students have only 10 hours to set up the whole show, perform it for their audience, break it down, and get out of the Morsani Hall by midnight. “It’s a great honor to perform in the Morsani Hall for the other crazy thespians who are going to be the best audience in the world. It’s a logistical nightmare, but we are going to control it by being as organized as possible. We are very excited.” said technical director Mr. Rick Juergens.
In addition to performing Newsies, their one act performance, Gold Dust Woman, was also selected to perform at the festival. This season is packed for the troupe as they will be involved with five shows simultaneously– Disenchanted, Almost Maine, Newsies, Gold Dust Woman, and Something Rotten. “It’s going to take a lot of time and teamwork, we already started scheduling everything out for the end of the year. That is why it’s great to have a good team and dedicated theater students who are able and want to do this but it is going to take a lot of careful planning. I am very excited, it is going to be a lot but I know it is going to be worth it.” said assistant director Mr. Keith Traver
