Passion in practice at ThesCon

Cedar Theater students attended The Thespian Conference (ThesCon) from Feb. 5-7 along with 6,000 other learners in Columbus, GA. ThesCon was created as a learning opportunity for students who are members of the International Thespian Society, an honor society for theatrical scholars. 

“When you go to ThesCon you have a chance to interact with 6,000 other students to see what they can do. So that’s going to help you see your own potential and step up your own game. And you’re committing to it for three days, and it takes work just to get there. By the time students get to Thespian Conference, they’re ready to get something out of it to actually have a meaningful experience,” Cedar Theater Director Rosemary Milsap said.

The conference features performances and auditions, and some of the most extensive experiences are workshops led by theater professionals spanning from puppetry to film acting. 

“The conference itself is just about developing people who consider themselves theater creators – actors, also people who might do musical theater. There’s aspects of performance that maybe some people don’t think about, but they’re very much elements used in the making of theater. At Thespian Conference, there are workshops that give you training and instruction and exposure to all of those aspects, every kind of technical element that gets used in creating theater and all the various aspects of performance and be ready for the mental demands of the stage,” Milsap said. 

ThesCon is structured around workshops for students to experience the freedom of choosing their own classes and how to get the most out of the experience. 

“ThesCon is an exciting experience for me because of the freedom I get as a student to make decisions about my day–to-day. There’s some responsibility when you’re figuring out how to make the most of your time there,” senior theater student Wil Els said. 

Similarly, Junior Alex Buckley praises ThesCon for allowing that freedom while also fostering connections and friendships with other schools and peers. 

“It allows you to create a lot of connections with people from other schools, especially when you are kind of forced to go to a play or a workshop alone because you have to connect with people there,” Buckley said. 

The Georgia Thespian Conference has grown in size over the past years, with more students attending. 

“Numbers wise, it’s grown. I think professionals from all over the country know that Georgia Thespian conference is one of the really solid, solid conferences, and so they really don’t have trouble contracting professionals in the industry to come and teach these workshops at the conference, because it has such a good reputation,” Milsap said.