This year in April, Notre Dame High School thespians attended the California State Thespian Festival. This amazing experience is offered every year in Upland, located in the Los Angeles area. For this event, 1,100 passionate theater students descend upon Upland High School to participate in acting and design competitions, watch some of the best high school theater in the country and to take workshops led by professional actors, directors and designers. Students also have the opportunity to audition for dozens of colleges and private scholarships, as well as network with representatives from many theater schools across the nation.

Our Notre Dame troupe started he journey at Disneyland where we were able to take a technology workshop. Through the workshop, we learned how The Enchanted Tiki room was designed. We were also able to go behind Smuggler's run in Edge of the Empire and learn the mechanics behind that ride's function. 

After Disney day, our troupe scored in the top 30% of schools attending in our "Thespy" competition, and Aparna '23 was chosen out of more than 1,000 students to be the assistant choreographer for the opening number, and was able to perform her own choreography to a screaming crowd of 1,100 on the Highlander Mainstage.

Another highlight of the trip was watching Charlotte '23, Julie '25, and Lauren '24 perform in a cross-California one hour version of The Prom and really rock their parts.