Hello everyone!!

If you've been following me and reading my announcements, you know that my theater department at my high school competed in the State Thespian Festival this year.

For those who aren't involved with anything theater, the state festival is where every school who wishes to attend, goes to a designated university once a year to watch one-act plays, performances, monologues, learn skills and talk with important people from other schools, if they want to pursue theater in the future.

This year, my state chose WVU (West Virginia University) to hold the state festival. My school traveled with 3 other schools on 2 total buses 3 hours to the school, and we stayed 3 nights at a hotel.

About 2 months ago, my school participated in Regional Competitions. So 6 schools in my general area of the state gathered at a high school and performed a 45-minute play for 3 judges, and after that, only 3 of the 6 schools would move on to the state level. Then, at the state level, every school that passed the regional level, would get to perform at the state level. They would get judged, and then the few judges would choose one school to represent the entire state at the National Thespian Festival in June, in Indiana this year.

A thespian is a higher-up theater kid, pretty much. By definition, they've dedicated 100+ logged hours to the theater. I'm an inducted thespian :)

Last year, my school didn't move on to the state level. It was also my teacher's first year teaching, but they went to the state festival anyway. Schools can go to the festival to watch performances and things anyway, even if they don't perform. Does that make sense?

This year, we moved on. It was a lot of fun!!

We performed on Thursday, March 30, 2023, at 7pm. There was a lot of stress, and a few of my cast members were crying. As the light board operator, I could only do so much. However, I did whatever I could.

Whenever you travel for theater, you have to be careful with what you do and bring. For the lights (what I was responsible for), was very stressful.

Around 5:00 pm, was our Tech Walkthrough. That's when the people who are responsible for the event, walk our cast and crew members through the entire theater/auditorium, explain everything in detail, so we are aware of everything. However, this did not happen.

We were taken on to state, and out Director was told to set up for the top of our play. "Uhh, okay...guys, set up for scene 1!" She said.

Now, for the lights, I'm the only one responsible. I like that, I prefer it, actually. For sound, we have a sound board operator, and our stage manager stays with her in the booth with us two, so back stage isn't so crowded. Our assistant stage manager is back stage.

So us four, sound and light board operator and stage manager, stood back, confused on what to do. No one told us where the booth was...?? We took things into our own hands- because we only had 15 minutes to figure out the spacing for our show, light and sound cues and everything else.

Finally, we get up to the booth (where lights and sound are controller, typically far from the stage). There are 2 WVU students waiting for us -_- okay, yeah, thanks for waiting and not helping us find you, wonderful.

So, I'm with this girl. She instantly asks "okay, what do you have?"

......a binder of my light cues???? What do you mean, 'what do I have'??

SHE WANTS ME TO MAKE LIGHT CUES?!

Okay, so, in theater lighting, there are typically 2 types: cues, and sliders.

Sliders, are, well, sliders. As you push them up, the light goes bright. As you pull it down, the light goes dark.

Cues: you select a light, type in the brightness, where you want it to shine, how long you want it to take to bring up, and so forth. You can change colors in cues, and such. Cues take a while when you make them for shows.

Normally for competition pieces, you don't ever use cues, because 1) they take so long and 2) you cannot transfer cues from one light board to another type of light board.

So I'm kinda panicking. But I've been doing lights for 2 years, so I tell her how to program my sliders into cues. In 10 minutes, we reach scene 4 of 10.

ONLY 4 SCENES. OF 10.

THIS UNIVERSITY STUDENT DIDN'T LET ME TOUCH ANYTHING AT ALL, SHE DIDN'T EXPLAIN HOW HER BOARD WORKED, NOR HOW THE STAGE REFLECTED LIGHT, NOTHING.

She wasn't helpful.

So, I was forced from the booth because the next school was up for their tech walkthrough. As we returned, all cast and crew together, I started to cry. I have worked so hard to make the lights good for this show, and because of this University student, our show 1) had lights for half of the show 2) had shitty lights for that 3) stressed me the fuck out.

I don't cry often, and in the theater, when everyone else is freaking out, I'm known to be the one to keep calm. So when I started crying lightly, everyone was concerned. We had lights for half of the show, and the next time I would be in the booth- have any time to TRY to fix a thing, is when we would be performing. There was no time to fix anything. It was a fact that we had no lighting, because this girl wasn't listening to me

I told her "I need only the left side of the stage lit up."

And she said "...I don't know what you mean."

-she lights up the whole stage-

"Like that?"

YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO SHOW ME HOW YOUR LIGHT BOARD WORKS, HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW-

Okay. Whatever, okay.

So, I'm trying to calm down, because I know it isn't helping anyone. I call a friend that's back home, and calm down. I talk to my stage manager who was also in the booth (on the side with sound) and turns out, they were in the exact same boat.

So after we tell our director, she is pissed. She goes up to the guy in charge, and requests we have just 5 more minutes in the booth. He agrees. So, we go back up there. The school before us is performing, it's 6:00 pm. My director follows us booth kids to the booth.

The girl who was supposed to teach me, whispers "they're just gonna use the master slider so you can just watch."

The master slider on a light board, controls every light on a stage. Sometime's there's two, one for the stage and one for the audiance- or sometimes there's only one master, which is both.

My director hears this, and she bites her lip. My director is the most calm teacher, and I admire her for that. She has self-control and she slays. Seeing her angry is terrifying. So I'm standing behind, simply watching, not learning a thing. The people on sound for my school, the same thing.

My director is pissed, and says "nope, we're leaving. Let's go." Over our headsets. We leave the booth, and once we're out of the auditorium, she says: "Well, that was a fucking waste of our fucking time."

Great.

After the school before us is done performing, it's show time for us.

Luckily, the school was under time. Remember how I said they had to be no longer than 45 minutes? They took 34 minutes to perform. The second they were done, I run to the booth.

I thought, "I have 11 minutes to make light cues. I have 11 minutes to try and fix this."

And I did.

In those 11 minutes, I [figuratively] pulled that university student by her scalp, put her in her spot, told her what I needed her to do for me, and got exactly what I needed. I was authoritive, and my school now had everything we needed to do exactly what we needed to do. We had proper lights.

I did it.

Our school performed effortlessly. It was just like a rehearsal.

Then comes Saturday. The day of awards, the closing ceremony. Saturday, April 1, was the day the judges announced who would be representing our state on the National Level.

Guess who?

THE SCHOOL RIGHT NEXT DOOR TO US!!

Not us, BUT MY AMAZING FRIENDS!! AAH I'M SO HAPPY FOR THEM!!

But, guys, keep reading.

These people are smart, they choose an alternate school. Representing at the national level is a shit ton of money, it's like $25,000 USD to go, in total. So, if for some reason the chosen school cannot go, they choose an Alternate School.

Guess who that Alternate School is?

US!!!

I AM THAT ALTERNATE SCHOOL!!

MY SCHOOL GOT SECOND PLACE IN MY ENTIRE STATE, IN THE STATE THESPIAN FESTIVAL THIS YEAR. MY FIRST STATE FESTIVAL, AND WE GOT SECOND PLACE. OH, MY GOD!!!!

I'm so glad we did so well!!!

It's kinda funny, because us and the chosen school, our budgets are very limited. We are the two most broke schools, I swear 😂😂 and we beat schools with a lot of money!! I'm so happy!!!

So, there's that. Yay!!

Pictures!!

A while ago, when I figured out that I no longer identified as female, I cut my hair. I know a lot of people on here liked my long hair, but I think you'll like my short hair better ;)

Cute duckies we saw on the way to Arby's (fast food restaurant)

Playing CARDS AGAINST HUMANITY during Intermission 💪

The lobby at the theater we performed in :O

I love this man, he is so silly goofy. He's a year older than me. He's so silly.

And this is me now :)

I truely had a lot of fun on this trip, I'm so glad that a school who did so good truely got what they deserved. They did so well <3 I'm perfectly fine with being the alternate choice :)

I hope everyone has a wonderful day and week :)

I'm excited to get back to Wattpad, and school! I'll be publishing Cover Me in a few minutes ;)