Individual & Group IE FAQs
What are National IEs?
How many National IE Entries can we have?
Is there Acceptable & Unacceptable Material?
How are main stage performers chosen?
Why are students required to wear black clothing for technical and performance IEs? Why can’t we just wear nice clothes?
If we qualify for Nationals, are we required to go to the International Thespian Festival?
Does EVERY student have to be registered for events?
What pitfalls should I be aware of?
- Individual Events or IEs are competitive events which qualify for National Competitions at the International Thespian Festival.
- Performance IEs: Solo Musical, Duet Musical, Group Musical, Monologue, Duet Acting, Group Acting
- Technical IEs: Sound Design, Lighting Design, Stage Management, Marketing, Costume Construction, Costume Design, Set Design, Makeup Design
- Short Film (Documentary, Live Action and Animation)
- Playworks - playwriting competition
- Musicalworks - music composition competition
How many National IE Entries can we have?
- Troupes are allowed 14 TOTAL IE entries this year. The previous restriction of 6 acting events and 8 technical theater events is lifted for this year.
- This means you can enter 14 Group Musicals OR 2 Stage Management entries, 2 Solo Musical entries and 10 Group musicals.
- Short Film entries do not count as part of the 14 entries.
Is there Acceptable & Unacceptable Material?
- Acceptable material for all Individual Performance Events:
- Published scripts written for the theater ONLY
- Songs from a musical that have been written for the theater (regardless of its previous publication as a classical or popular song).
- Unacceptable material for Individual Performance Events:
- Poetry
- Fiction
- Scripts or songs from films
- Scripts or songs from television
- Stand-alone monologues found on the internet or in monologue books
- Popular songs not used in a published work for the theater
- Classical songs not used in a published work for the theater.
How are main stage performers chosen?
- These students will be chosen from submitted videos.
- Recognition plans are still being finalized.
Why are students required to wear black clothing for technical and performance IEs? Why can’t we just wear nice clothes?
- This is a national model which Texas Thespians follow. Wearing all-black clothing promotes professionalism and creates a level playing ground for all participants.
- Click here for examples of What to Wear and What Not to Wear.
If we qualify for Nationals, are we required to go to the International Thespian Festival?
- You are not required, but if you’ve never taken a troupe, you might want to look into it! National Festival is a blast!!
Does EVERY student have to be registered for events?
- Yes - it's required for every student who is competing.
- The reason? We want to give every student the opportunity to participate in all facets of festival and in doing so, we have had MASSIVE conflicts in the past with students participating in the competitions, the shows, and the scholarship auditions.
- To rectify this, we are creating personalized schedules for each student and troupe. After registration, we can cross-reference to see if your scholarship auditioning senior is also scheduled for an Individual Event. This process gives us the ability to see conflicts before we get to festival, and prevents stressed out troupe directors, Thespians, and festival personnel who are juggling 7,000+ schedules.
What pitfalls should I be aware of?
- Each student competing in each event must be registered by the registration deadline. This includes each student in each group or duet event. For example, Sam and Mary are competing in Duet Acting. BOTH Sam and Mary must be entered in Duet Acting and the competition piece info must be entered for BOTH students.
