JDHS Theatre selected for International Fringe Festival

The Juneau Douglas High School Drama Department has been selected to perform next year at the prestigious International Fringe Theatre Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland.

JDHS also has been voted one of the best high school theatre programs in the U.S. by the American High School Theatre Festival.

High school theatre groups must be nominated by a college theatre program to begin the application process. Theatre Department Director Micaela Moore says she doesn’t know who recommended JDHS, but she was notified last September, which began the formal application process. In December a panel of judges from the American High School Theatre Festival selected JDHS to attend the 2013 festival.

Moore says between 20 and 30 “hard working” theatre students will participate.

“You know it needs to be the kids who have been working hard in the department and who are the committed members of our team,” she says.

The JDHS program has a year to prepare and raise funds. Moore estimates it will cost $6,000 per student for travel and the festival.

“Different colleges, different professional groups, and then high schools who have been accepted for this honor, perform their plays every night and they get feedback, I believe, from judges. It’s a two-week program and the kids get to go to a lot of workshops, too,” she says.

Moore doesn’t know yet what play the students will perform. She expects to select a large ensemble where a lot of characters have big parts, but minimal set requirements, because the theatre group will have to ship the set and props.

She says the students will be at the International Fringe Theatre Festival for about two weeks in August 2013. The cost includes air fare, housing, meals, the workshops and some travel in Great Britain that will take the students to professional theatre performances in London.

Moore hopes the theatre students will be able to raise most of the funds from their shows. The next JDHS play is a modern version of Cole Porter’s Kiss Me Kate. It begins February 10th.

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