What is the International Thespian Society?

The International Thespian Society (ITS) is an honor society for high school and middle school theatre students. It is a division of the Educational Theatre Association. Thespian troupes serve students in grades 9-12; Junior Thespian troupes serve students in grades 6 through 8. A few famous ITS alumni include Tom Hanks, Val Kilmer, James Marsters, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Stephen Schwartz.^[1]Festivals are held annually at the district, state and national levels. Each June the International Thespian Festival is held at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Membership currently stands at approximately 100,000 student members across 4,700 schools. The one millionth Thespian was inducted in 1976 and the two millionth Thespian was inducted in 2009. As of 2019, there have been over 2.4 million Thespians inducted.