Georgia Thespian Conference 2020 Show Information

Show Session 1 RiverCenter for the Performing Arts – Bill Heard Theatre Shenandoah Milton High School, Troupe 6168 Musical by James Lee Barrett, Peter Udell, & Gary Geld This colorful and dramatic musical focuses on a strong willed Virginia farmer trying to keep his family neutral as the Civil War rages. The family is inevitably swept up against all odds in the conflict between the Union and Confederate forces. The family's story is a heart-warming and heart-rending portrayal of the upheaval that left wounds on the land and its people for generations to come. (Samuel French)

Springer Opera House – Emily Woodruff Hall The Addams Family Greenbrier High School, Troupe 5888 Musical Comedy with book by Marshall Brickman & Rick Elice and music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa The Addams Family is large scale comedy musical production bringing together a cross section of our student body. It is fast paced high energy performance with a great deal of physical action. Each song has added dance. Trapped is performed with jail House dancers, secrets with skeletons dancers, a large scale tango, and many more. (Theatrical Rights Worldwide)

Springer Opera House – McClure Theatre Dancing at Lughnasa Mary Persons High School, Troupe 5158 Drama by Brian Friel Set in 1930's Ireland, Dancing at Lughnasa is a memory play narrated by the character, Michael, as he recounts the story of his mother and four aunts, the Mundy sisters. We see their story unfold through the eyes of Michael and watch them evolve as they deal with the sadness of an ailing older brother, Jack, and the reckless behavior of Gerry Evans, Michael's often absent father. We see their lives change as they move through themes of love, loss, aging, and enduring strength. (Dramatist Play Service)

CSU Riverside Theatre Complex – Mainstage Footloose Gainesville High School, Troupe 2445 Musical by music by Tom Snow & lyrics by Dean Pitchford and book by Dean Pitchford & Walter Bobbie Ren, a teenager, and his mother Ethel are moving to Beaumont, Texas, to live with relatives. Being a new student in the school, Ren finds it difficult to believe that dancing is outlawed. Life changes for the better when he meets Ariel, the preacher's daughter. (Rodgers and Hammerstein)

CSU Riverside Theatre Complex – Studio Theatre Lost Girl South Forsyth High School, Troupe 5362 Drama by Kimberly Belflower, a Georgia Thespian alum Lost Girl is told through the perspective of Wendy post-Neverland. She is having trouble moving on from Peter Pan and moving out of the nursery. She discovers her own strength in the process. (Samuel French)

Show Session 2 RiverCenter for the Performing Arts – Bill Heard Theatre How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying Houston County High School, Troupe 4974 Musical Comedy with music & lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock, and Willie Gilbert A satire of big business and all it holds sacred, How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying follows the rise of J. Pierrepont Finch, who uses a little handbook called How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying to climb the corporate ladder from lowly window washer to high-powered executive, tackling such familiar but potent dangers as the aggressively compliant "company man," backstabbing coworkers, caffeine addiction and, of course, true love. (Music Theatre International)

Springer Opera House – Emily Woodruff Hall Amadeus Martha Ellen Stilwell School of the Arts, Troupe 8068 Drama by Peter Shaffer The life, success, and troubles of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as told by Antonio Salieri, the contemporaneous composer who was insanely jealous of Mozart's talent and claimed to have murdered him. Antonio Salieri struggles with his own talent and religious beliefs. (Samuel French) Springer Opera House – McClure Theatre The Girl in the White Pinafore Cambridge High School, Troupe 7858 Drama by Jiggs Burgess The children of the New London school, led by Amelia (the girl in the white pinafore), now haunt the former School Superintendent W. C. Shaw. His decision to save money on the school's natural gas installation had tragic ramifications. More a story of the search for redemption than an outright ghost story, The Girl In The White Pinafore asks tough questions about guilt and grief. Based on real events that touch our lives still. (New Play Exchange)

CSU Riverside Theatre Complex – Mainstage Disney's Freaky Friday The Musical Warner Robins High School, Troupe 1802 Musical Comedy with book By Bridget Carpenter, music By Tom Kitt, lyrics By Brian Yorkey When an uber-organizedmother and her spontaneous teenage daughter magically swap bodies, they have just one day to put things right. Masquerading as each other, they must work together to solve the mystery of how to break the spell. By spending a day in each other's shoes, Katherine and Ellie come to appreciate one another in a way they never could have imagined. In the end, both learn the true power of love and the strength of the bond between a mother and daughter in this heartfelt and hilarious adaptation. (Music Theatre International)

CSU Riverside Theatre Complex – Studio Theatre The Diviners Sequoyah High School, Troupe 4739 Drama by Jim Leonard, Jr. This marvelously theatrical play is the story of a disturbed young man and his friendship with a disenchanted preacher in southern Indiana in the early 1930s. When the boy was young he almost drowned; this trauma, and the loss of his mother in the same accident, has left him deathly afraid of water. The preacher, set on breaking away from a long line of Kentucky family preachers, is determined not to do what he does best. The town doesn’t have a preacher and the women try to persuade him to preach – while he tries to persuade the child to wash. (Samuel French)

Show Session 3 RiverCenter for the Performing Arts – Bill Heard Theatre Rent Glynn Academy, Troupe 5019 Musical by Johnathan Larson Alphabet City in the early 1990's. Roommates Mark and Roger are trying to live a normal existence with the help of their colorful friends and neighbors. (Music Theatre International) This show contains scenes that some audience members may find disturbing.

Springer Opera House – Emily Woodruff Hall Bonnie and Clyde Denmark High School, Troupe 8720 Musical with music by Frank Wildhorn, lyrics by Don Black and a book by Ivan Menchell Bonnie and Clyde tells the story of real-life fugitives, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. In the midst of the country-wide depression the couple find notoriety and love in this thrilling, fast-paced musical. Frustrated with their poor, ordinary lives, Bonnie and Clyde both dream of the exciting lives they have seen in the movies. (Music Theatre International)

Springer Opera House – McClure Theatre Nunsense Johnson High School, Troupe 2281 Musical Comedy by Dan Goggin Nunsense is a show within a show. The Little Sisters of Hoboken are putting on a fundraiser to raise money to bury sisters accidentally poisoned by the convent cook, Sister Julia (Child of God). These nuns, sing, dance, and touch your heart! (Samuel French)

CSU Riverside Theatre Complex – Mainstage Rabbit Hole Mill Creek High School, Troupe 6855 Drama by David Lindsay-Abaire Becca and Howie Corbett have everything a family could want, until a life-shattering accident turns their world upside down and leaves the couple drifting perilously apart. Rabbit Hole charts their bittersweet search for comfort in the darkest of places and for a path that will lead them back into the light of day. (Dramatists Publishing Company)

CSU Riverside Theatre Complex – Studio Theatre On the Verge or The Geography of Yearning Carrollton High School, Troupe 3682 Comedy by Eric Overmeyer Mary, Fanny and Alex-three explorers from the Victorian age, set out on an adventure through time. This comedy, full of language and laughs, takes the audience on a journey that ends in the future yet to be seen. (Broadway Play Publishing)

Show Session 4 RiverCenter for the Performing Arts – Bill Heard Theatre A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder Buford High School, Troupe 2971 Musical by Freedman, Lutvak When the low-born Monty Navarro finds out that he's eighth in line for an earldom in the lofty D'Ysquith family, he figures his chances of outliving his predecessors are slight and sets off down a far more ghoulish path. And it's killer! (Musical Theatre International)

Springer Opera House – Emily Woodruff Hall Dirty Work at the Crossroads Davidson Fine Arts, Troupe 3782 Melodrama by Bill Johnson This play tells in laughable style the tear jerking story of Nellie Lovelace, an innocent country girl. Munro, the viper, has a wife in Ida Rhinegold, belle of the New Haven Music Halls, but that does not prevent him from pursuing Nellie and tearing her from the arms of her dying mother (whom he has poisoned). Nor does it prevent him from driving Adam Oakhart, Nellie's love interest, to drink OR from blackmailing rich Mrs. Asterbilt OR from bewitching her daughter, Leonie. (Samuel French)

Springer Opera House – McClure Theatre Quilters Lake Oconee Academy, Troupe 8576 Musical by Molly Newman and Barbara Damashek Quilters is the story of a pioneer woman and her daughters. The action of Quilters depicts the lot of women on the frontier: girlhood, marriage, childbirth, spinsterhood, twisters, fire, illness, and death. Each scene represents a block of a quilt, pieced together as a legacy from the mother to her daughters. (Dramatists Play Service)

CSU Riverside Theatre Complex – Mainstage Medea Columbus High School, Troupe 5390 Drama by Nelly E. Cuellar-Garcia (based on the play by Euripides) Medea is a powerful, magical woman who gives up her powers in order to be with her husband, Jason. However, when Jason leaves her to marry a woman of higher status, grief-stricken Medea seeks solace in destroying Jason. Deaf to the warnings of her nurse, her Greek chorus influences her to ruthlessly sever her husband's lineage only to find herself "alone and forsaken". This modern punk version with dance adapts Euripide's classic tragedy, effectively exploring Medea's disjointed psyche within the context of ancient Greek values. (Playscripts, Inc.)

CSU Riverside Theatre Complex – Studio Theatre Bellwether McIntosh High School, Troupe 3666 Drama by Steve Yockey Bad things don't happen in the suburb of Bellwether. That is, until the six-year-old daughter of a newly arrived couple disappears without a trace. As the couple fight to find their daughter, the neighbors begin to suspect that they may not be entirely innocent in the girl's disappearance. Written by a writer/producer for the show Supernatural, Bellwether digs underneath the facade of the suburbs and goes to some intense and unexpected places. (Samuel French) This show contains scenes that some audience members may find disturbing.

Show Session 5

RiverCenter for the Performing Arts – Bill Heard Theatre Urinetown Northside High School, WR, Troupe 2892 Musical by Hollmann/Kotis A 20-year drought has led to a government-enforced ban on private toilets. The citizens must use public amenities, regulated by a single malevolent company that profits by charging admission for one of humanity's most basic needs. Amid the people, a hero decides that he's had enough and plans a revolution to lead them all to freedom! (Music Theatre International)

Springer Opera House – Emily Woodruff Hall Sense and Sensibility Walnut Grove High School, Troupe 7663 Comedy by Kate Hamill A playful new adaptation of Jane Austen’s beloved novel follows the fortunes (and misfortunes) of the Dashwood sisters - sensible Elinor and hypersensitive Marianne-after their father’s sudden death leaves them financially destitute and socially vulnerable. Set in gossipy late 18th- century England, with a fresh female voice, the play is full of humor, emotional depth, and bold theatricality. Sense and Sensibility examines our reactions, both reasonable and ridiculous, to societal pressures. When reputation is everything, how do you follow your heart? (Dramatists Publishing Company)

Springer Opera House – McClure Theatre The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee Harris County High School, Troupe 6575 Musical Comedy by Finn & Sheinkin An eclectic group of six mid-pubescents vie for the spelling championship of a lifetime. While candidly disclosing hilarious and touching stories from their home lives, the tweens spell their way through a series of (potentially made-up) words, hoping never to hear the soul-crushing, pout inducing, life un-affirming "ding" of the bell that signals a spelling mistake. Six spellers enter; one speller leaves! At least the losers get a juice box. (Music Theatre International)

CSU Riverside Theatre Complex – Mainstage Silent Sky Evans High School, Troupe 3786 Drama by Lauren Gunderson The true story of 19th century astronomer Henrietta Leavitt explores a women's place in society during a time of immense scientific discoveries, when women's ideas were dismissed until men claimed credit for them. As Henrietta, in her free time, attempts to measure the light and distance of stars, she must also take measure of her life on Earth, trying to balance her dedication to science with family obligations and the possibility of love. (Dramatists Play Service)

CSU Riverside Theatre Complex – Studio Theatre Mockingbird Marietta High School, Troupe 111 Drama by Julie Jensen/Kathryn Erskine Caitlin is an 11 year old girl on the autism spectrum, and she recently lost her brother to a school shooting. Alone with her grieving father, Caitlin struggles to understand the mysterious emotions surrounding her. We see the world from Caitlin's point of view, struggle with her, and take comfort as she develops new friendships. (Dramatic Publishing)