Each year, Trinity Thespian Troupe 1780 travels to the District Festival and competes in performance-based events ranging from singing to dancing to plays. This year, Trinity students competed in events spanning from group musicals to solo monologues at Lyman High School in Longwood.

   Trinity competes in District Three, which includes schools such as Oviedo High School and Winter Springs High School. At the competition, students performed their three to five-minute long events in front of an official judge. The screening process that determines which events students will participate in and rehearsals for the competition both occured beforehand at Trinity.

   “[Before Districts], everyone signs up for events, and we hold auditions at Trinity [for events like] solo musical, monologue, senior scholarship, duet acting, duet song, ensemble acting, large group musical and small group musical,” senior Hannah Mosher said. “You can audition for three events, and then our troupe picks three [actors] for each category.”

   The troupe, as always, came home with a slew of awards. Their One Act, entitled “RIDE,” received superior ratings, both in performance and technical categories. An acting piece by Mosher and sophomore Josh Leftkowitz was awarded Best in Show for duet acting, the highest honor for a category at the festival.

   In addition, Leftkowitz won Best in Show for his original written work “Impressionist Oblivion” and also received the award of All Star Crew.

   Trinity seniors Liam O’Connor and Madeleine Meyers also won All Star Cast and All Star Crew, respectively. All in all, Trinity received 10 ratings of superior and 11 ratings of excellent.   

   Although all who received a rating of superior or excellent are eligible to perform at the State Thespian Festival, each school can only bring six events. Trinity has chosen to include Leftkowitz’s playwriting, Mosher and Leftkowitz’s duet acting, two duet musicals, and two group performances.

   Many seniors who performed for their last time at the district festival had goals for the quality of their last performances.

   “The first event I did at Thespian [districts] got [a score of] ‘excellent,’” Mosher said. ”But the top [result for events] is ‘superior,’ and in our troupe, we normally get ‘superiors.’ When you get [an] ‘excellent’ [ranking], it’s kind of awkward since you feel like you’re lesser than everyone else in the whole troupe since everyone around you is getting the highest score and you didn’t. So I don’t want an excellent [ranking this year].”

   Of course, Mosher would go above and beyond her goal. She is excited to pair with Leftkowitz once more at States.

   Before they leave for college, other seniors intend to socialize more with old and new members of the Trinity Thespians troupe, along with other competitors in the community.

   “[I think] getting to know everyone on my troupe better [is important, and] there’s a lot of people that joined [this year],” senior Ashleigh Avallone said. “Being a senior is a great opportunity to meet all the people and welcome them into the troupe.”

   Mosher, who is president of the troupe, hopes to push Trinity to network more with other teams competing at the third district festival. She dreams of creating long-lasting friendships with other local schools.

   “Since I’m the president, I get to have a lunch with all the presidents of the other troupes…and I feel like I didn’t meet as many as I could have,” Mosher said. “So I hope to reach out and make our troupes friends.”