Middle school thespian Troupe 88940 earned one “superior” ranking and four “excellent” awards as its members traveled to Orlando during the weekend to perform in events including costume design, solo musical and improv. Eighth-grader, Gage H. performed in an improv scene.

“We left the school at around 6:30 on Saturday to go to the convention center and when we got there we found a table and started practicing our acts,” Gage said. “We then went to see some of our earlier performances. Then we did some improv scenes and after we were done, we left and ate dinner at Friendly’s, and went home,”

Because Gage is an eighth-grader, this was his last year participating at middle-school states.

“I overall had a really good time at states. It was really fun to go up to Orlando again and hangout with my friends and perform,” he said. “It is a bit sad to think about it being my last middle- school states, but I’m also excited to be able to do high-school states next year and the years after.”

Gage’s improv partner, Shane S., expanded on what happened in Orlando.

“The weekend of states was kind of crazy because we had to wake up really early to get to the school so that we could drive to Orlando, but besides that it was great,” Shane said. “I got to see some friends I’d made at districts, as well as seeing a lot of great performers. “To practice, we just did a lot of improv and random scenes and learned techniques to make the scene work better, like not contradicting and going along with what the other person says.”

She said performing in her final middle-school states left her feeling bittersweet.

“This experience was really great cause I got to hang out with some of my best friends, and it was really fun to be around other people who were thespians. It was also good for us to see other schools’ performances and how competitive it all got,” Shane said. “It was definitely pretty emotional with it being the last middle-school state competition, but I’m looking forward to next year’s competition,”

By Jade Norton