The South Thespians attended the annual KS Thespian conference in Wichita, Kansas from January 8th-10th. Although they did not bring a production to the conference, they won many awards. The improv team won first in state and our speed charades team won second. Improv Captain Jon Geiger was not expecting the first place win,

“We went in very unprepared, and we played games we had never played before. When we were looking up the games and how to play them, we asked chat GPT how to play them in simple five year old terms,” Geiger said. 

Even with the unexpectancy their team was successful,

“We killed it man, and we had the whole room dying laughing. We moved on to the second (round) and then we were looking up on chat GPT how to play more because we didn’t prepare anything else. So we went up and we killed it again, and we won state.” 

Geiger believes the strong connection of the team was the reason they advanced so far in the competition. 

Eight out of the seventeen attending received “superior” or “excellent,” rankings for their talents. 

Kaia Bell performed a monologue and a musical theatre piece. She received superior and perfect score accolades which qualifies her for nationals.  Leading up to the performance, She prepared for her performances. 

“I just worked with my voice teacher, and I decided to use a monologue from Almost Maine, which was a play that we did earlier in the year,” said Bell. 

Bell learned how to channel confidence through her performances, 

“I definitely learned how to be independent while getting in  an audition situation where you have to just go into the corner and warm up, or just take a minute to yourself in,the bathroom, look in the mirror and be like, I’m okay, like, calm your nerves,” said Bell.