Here
at Memorial we offer a four-year, fully developed season for all students at MHS. The
department consists of four levels of acting/production classes and includes advanced acting training in both contemporary
and classical theatre. We also offer musical theatre as a part of our curriculum.
Our students typically perform in two to five productions a year and are committed to learning the technical elements
of theatre production by serving on a variety of different crews that work monthly at our Saturday Workdays to keep productions
on schedule.
We
also offer a four-year technical theatre program for students that wish to pursue the darker side of theatre. In this part of the program, students gain basic knowledge of all areas of technical theatre and then may
choose to specialize in an area for their design work during the junior and senior years of study.
All students that participate in our program and plan to pursue further training in
the college/university setting leave MHS with an understanding of theater and have training that serves them well—earning
them scholarships, roles and jobs at the next level of theatre development. For specific honors and awards we invite
you to look at our recognition page but we would also like to mention that some of our students graduate to pursue theatre,
musical theatre, music and RTF training at Colleges and Universities all over the US and can be found at: NYU, OU, UCLA,
USC, UT, Oklahoma City University, Baylor, SF Austin, Trinity, St. Edwards University, Southwestern University, Missouri, LSU, Texas State, Texas Tech, and more. Additionally our students
have also been seen in movies, television and regional stages across the US.
Over the past
few years, we have set goals as a department and have worked diligently to attain those goals. In 2006, we wanted to
send all of our students who qualified in Individual Events to National Competition in Lincoln, Nebraska. We buckled
down and raised over $15,000 to do just that! In 2007, the goal achieved was to advance out of Zone in UIL OAP, get
our musical nominated for a Tommy Tune Best Musical Award and qualify students for Nationals and also wanted
to take home a Thespian Scholarship. We set our minds to it and did just that. In 2008, our next goal was to be
selected to perform a show at Nationals. Thus the trip to Nationals with two 18-wheelers, a 25 ft. truck, 2 54-passenger
buses and a plane of parents and musicians hit the road. It was an incredible experience across the board to be selected,
but to also be the opening number for the International Festival was even more amazing. Who knows what we will do next?
Maybe Nationals again? ...so far this year, we have qualified 15 students for Nationals in June 2010 but we are
also thinking about going a bit further. Will you be a part of the next challenge or goal? We head to Edinburgh
Scotland for 2011 and want to know if you will be on the plane with us?
For additional
information about our program or to meet with our director please email her at nicole.morgan@springbranchisd.com. She is happy to meet with any potential students and set up a tour of our facilities and talk about how you too can
be part of this amazing group of students working in this wonderful space here at Memorial High School.