Theatre In Our Schools 2020... Wrap Up!

By: STO Jarrett Stewart, Sunnyvale HS, Troupe 7532

Hello Texas Thespians! As many of you know, this past month theatre students across the country celebrated Theatre In Our Schools Month; an entire month dedicated to theatre students supporting each other, raising awareness about the impact of theatre education, and drawing attention to the importance of all students having access to educational theatre. As this month comes to a close we wanted to share 3 major takeaways from Theatre in Our Schools Month that you can take into the rest of the year.

1. Connect With Your Administrators. You are going to want the support of your administrators to grow your theatre program, here are a few ideas that can help them feel connected to your program.
   1. Show them what you’re doing at rehearsal. If your department has a twitter, post rehearsal updates with pictures and tag your administrators. If your school does not typically use twitter you could also have your president or director email your admins a small paragraph about how rehearsals are going (Don’t forget to attach pictures!).
   2. Personally invite them to shows. If you go to a smaller school, you may be able to walk up to your admins in the hallway and ask them to come see your show, but if not, you can always email them an invitation. If you are going to email an invitation, make sure to send it a few weeks in advance, as it may take your administrators a while to get around to reading your email. 
   3. Thank your administrators. Whether it is for coming to a show, or just for being supportive of your program, you should always thank your administrators. A great way to do this is to have your troupe make cards at one of your meetings, nothing makes someone feel more appreciated than handwritten cards!
2. Support other Theatre Programs. As thespians, we can’t expect anyone to support us if we do not support each other. Be sure to follow troupes from surrounding schools so that you can stay updated on when they are putting on shows. 
3. Contact Your Representative. Getting March declared as Theatre in Our Schools on a statewide level is one of the STO’s biggest goals this year, but we can’t do this without the statewide support of every thespian, here are three steps you can take to make sure TIOSM is a topic on the Texas Legislature's table this year.
   1. Find out who your representative is. Using This link you can enter your address to find out who represents you. Each Texas resident has both a Texas senator and Texas house representative, we recommend contacting each of them.
   2. Write out a letter or email to your representatives. Be sure you include facts on how theatre education supports students' academics (Grades, Test scores, Etc.). You can find statistics to use Here, and explain why getting TIOSM declared is important to theatre students. Expect a letter template from the STO’s to come out in the next few months.
   3. If you are able to get a meeting, prepare! Make sure you have a packet with all the statistics and information you may need. It may be nerve wracking, but relax. You are just going to be sitting down, talking about what you are passionate about, Theatre!

Thank you all so much for an amazing Theatre in Our Schools Month. As we transition into the rest of our year, we don’t want to leave everything we’ve learned behind, always keep advocating for the arts, no matter what month it is. If every thespian does these three things, The rest of the year is going to be great for Texas Thespians. 

Keep it up,
Your 2020 Texas State Thespian Officers!

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