Congratulations to all 19 of our students who represented DSA Theatre at the International Thespian Conference this summer.

Students spent the week participating in workshops, visiting college reps, seeing productions from schools across the nation, and showcasing their work for adjudicators. We represented Durham and North Carolina to the highest extent!

We had 2 THESPY winners this year and 21 Superior Scores!! 

Congratulations to all 19 of our students who represented DSA Theatre at the International Thespian Conference this summer.

Students spent the week participating in workshops, visiting college reps, seeing productions from schools across the nation, and showcasing their work for adjudicators. We represented Durham and North Carolina to the highest extent!

We had 1 student who was a DOUBLE THESPY winner 5 Superior Scores!! 

Congratulations to all 16 of our students who represented DSA Theatre at the International Thespian Conference this summer.

Students spent the week participating in workshops, visiting college reps, seeing productions from schools across the nation, and showcasing their work for adjudicators. We represented Durham and North Carolina to the highest extent!

Having a student in the critic’s choice showcase and winning the festival for her Sound Design, another winning a huge scholarship and being called back for the critic’s choice showcase while also winning in her category for Solo Musical, a third winning the THESPY for winning in her Playwriting category, and walking away with 12 superior scoring events!!

The week consisted of THESPY presentations, college callbacks, workshops, amazing performances of productions from schools around the Nation, and the 24 Hour Play Fesitval.

Congratulations to Autumn Hendrickson for winning a top scoring SUPERIOR for her Solo Musical! Autumn Hendrickson

Congratulations to Erin Douglas for winning a top scoring SUPERIOR for her Theatre Marketing presentation for URINETOWN. Erin Douglas

Congratulations to Kaelie Goss for winning a top scoring SUPERIOR for her SOLO song!

AND a major congratulations to Nate Jones for winning the top THESPY Award for his PERFECT scoring Contrasting Monologues!! Nate was recognized in the final award’s ceremony in front of the entire festival (thousands of people)!!!

We are so proud of our students who attended festival, got tons of college callbacks, participated in tech challenge, discovered new things in workshops, and the five that competed with their THESPY event!! DSA Theatre represented Durham INCREDIBLY well!

HUGE WIN for DSA Theatre student, Chelsea Rose!

Chelsea Rose wrote a musical theatre song, titled- "It's Me, Dorothy" and was selected as one of 12 WINNERS from across the Nation! This challenge was created by the National Endowment for the Arts and the American Theatre Wing.

Chelsea's song will be worked with a Broadway Mentor and Musical Director, and then she will work with a Broadway Performer to record the song. The song will then be published on all streaming platforms and in a Concord Theatrical Songbook.

For a fourth year in a row, Durham School of the Arts Theatre Troupe 5765 traveled to Lincoln, NE to participate in the International Thespian Festival. ITF is a week-long immersive theatre event which brings together high school students, who are the best of the best, from all around the world. Fourteen students from DSA were invited to participate in ITF 2019. While all of the DSA students enjoyed professional development classes in both acting and technical theatre, nine of our students were invited to compete, individually, in different events (having rated Superior at the NC State Conference). DSA Theatre is proud to announce that ALL NINE STUDENTS SCORED A SUPERIOR – the highest honor students can achieve. DSA Theatre is the first high school in Durham Public Schools to receive such high accolades and the first to achieve a 100% success rate!

Additionally, two DSA Theatre students (Veronica Gilligan and Elena Holder) were cast from a pool of 200+ students to participate in two new musicals, which were developed at the festival in Lincoln. Veronica played the lead in WRATH OF THE PTA and Elena played multiple roles, alongside Broadway actor Sarah Charles Lewis, in DREAMLAND. Watch for these titles as they are further developed!

The DSA Theatre tech team had a very strong showing at the ITF TECH CHALLENGE 2019, placing 9th in the world!

Students also auditioned for 90 colleges, universities, and conservatories – receiving multiple callbacks.