Once a year high schoolers come from all over Portland to Thespians—an acting competition that gives students the ability to enhance their acting abilities and experience. Theater students at Cleveland took part in this competition for the fifth year in a row on Feb. 7. Attending this event brings theater students something to practice for and learn more about their acting experience while having fun in the process.  

Students at Cleveland spend around eight weeks to find material to go through and prepare for Thespians. During the competition there are different rounds that the student competes in that are judged by more experienced actors. 

“It gives them the ability to be assessed by professionals in the industry so they’ll have some directors, they’ll have some university professors, they have a bunch of actors that come in to adjudicate them. And so it gives them a professional perspective in their feedback whenever they present,” described Michael Payne, the theater teacher at Cleveland for the past eight years. 

Not only does this event give students an ability to enhance their acting ability but also bonds classmates dramatically more through sharing this experience and leveling up their acting experience as a whole. In between rounds there was some downtime for the students to spend together and have fun. 

“I was able to meet so many new people there. It was so fun to meet more people. I also had a lot of fun during intermissions,” Jackson Barella, a senior at Cleveland said. 

Thespians is a way for individual actors to have the ability to dive deeper into their acting styles and experience by preparing and performing for an audience to judge your abilities. 

“I think the whole process of Thespians—preparing for it so far in advance, having a performance before it, having an actual competition date—all of that helps you understand your scene on a deeper level. Instead of learning something in a whole play you get to pick out one scene and deep dive into all of the meanings, all of the connotations, all of the possible interpretations, every single movement,” junior Claire Lavenue explained. 

Acting is such a beautiful way of showing human expression of art through plays and performances. Thespians is a way that students get the chance to go out of their comfort zone and grow as a person and actor to showcase their abilities. 

“The one thing that every human does, every single day is communicate. And they are talking and they are either trying to get something or give something. If a student has nothing to do with theater when they leave here I want them to do two things: I want them to be better communicators and two, think about what they are going to do when they are an adult, 20 or 30 years old and they take someone on a date, let’s go to the theater to support the arts,” Payne expressed. 

Thespians brings theater students together to grow in the acting community and gain experience for their future acting careers. Throughout the process of preparing, analyzing, practicing, and performing gives the theater students a deep dive into the acting world and enhanced abilities for future plays to come.