As a member of the International Thespian Society’s Minnesota Chapter, East Ridge High School boasts an active Thespian Troupe.  Each year, students have an opportunity to attend the state student theatre festival that provides training, performance opportunities, connections to colleges, scholarship opportunities, and a chance to meet other student thespians from around Minnesota. Operated by The Educational Theatre Association (EdTA), The International Thespian Society (ITS) is the world’s largest honor program for students in theatre arts. Students earn membership by participating in the school’s theatre program and accumulating points. Those ERHS students earning membership are formally inducted into ITS at the end of the school year during the Theatre Banquet. For more than seventy-five years, EdTA and ITS have worked together to honor student achievement in theatre, strengthen theatre education experiences, support theatre teachers and reward program excellence, and encourage the public to view theatre education as an essential way to enrich student lives and build life skills. Check out this website for more information: http://schooltheatre.org/

True fact: Butter Braids sales is one of Loft Stage’s tastiest fundraising efforts. Get your orders in by the end of October for delivery by the holidays. Get some braids for yourself. Even better, sell them to friends, family, and neighbors and then casually invite yourself over for coffee and butter braids. That way, see, you can sample the goods, strengthen social bonds, and make money for your theatre program at the same time. Which would make you one smart cookie. As if that’s not amazing enough, students also can direct a portion of their fundraising profits into their own accounts for use on theatre-related expenditures, like fees, makeup kits, and tap shoes, AND on LoftPAC trips to shows like Billy Elliot, AND PLUS even the big TRIP TO LONDON. Sweet!

Family of cast and crew can pre-order tickets to White Christmas starting October 15th.  Do yourself a favor and get ’em while they’re hot, because on October 26th the general public will be snatching them up at warp speed.

Peoples! Ms. Hestwood, whose excitement over the June 2013 Trip to London (June 19th to June 25th through EF Tours) has swollen to dangerous proportions, has agreed to take the Pop Quiz challenge. No three-character restrictions for this born orator—wouldn’t want the woman’s brain to explode.

Q #1: Seven glorious days in LONDON, ENGLAND with a passel o’ high-spirited adolescents? Are you up to the task?

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Not everyone realizes that ERHS has one of the few high school theatre programs to use a student pit orchestra to play the musical scores for their productions.  Many high school programs use pre-recorded music, which often lacks the immediacy and energy that make a live pit orchestra so exciting.  At the Loft Stage, which champions a holistic, student-centered approach to high school theatre productions, student musicians are already in the pit working on the score for White Christmas.  What a great way to sharpen skills and give our talented young musicians an opportunity to participate in a professional-level live-theatre experience. (more…)