Team Play-Create

One of the unique elements of the Junior Thespian Festival is the Team Play-Create program.  Junior Festival participants work in randomly-divided teams during the three-day event to create short play presentations that are staged for the entire Festival delegation during the closing ceremonies on Sunday. This program gives delegates a chance to work with students from other schools, allows them to be part of an original work, and lets them shine in their area of strength—whether it’s performance, writing, or technical support—while accepting new challenges.

Using the Festival’s theme of Sounds Good to Me, each randomly-divided Team Play-Create team will be given a different musical instrument around which they will create their play presentation.  There are no limitations on the type of plays the teams may create.  The performance could be a scripted play, a musical, a series of narrative movement pieces, a series of monologues, a game show, or a mix of all these things.

Each team will be facilitated by an adult who will guide the students on their journey to brainstorm, create, stage, and perform their presentation.  It will be the responsibility of the adult to help them explore the possibilities; the focus should be on the ideas of the kids. Once the kids have selected their idea/suggestion on which to base their play, it will be up to the adult to guide them through the development of their ideas for that theme.  Their plays do not have to be set in a specific time—they can be contemporary pieces, or set in any time period and place.  There are endless possibilities!