Floyd Central Theatre Arts to perform at International Thespian Festival

Brooke McAfee, The Evening News and the Tribune, Jeffersonville, Ind.
·4 min read

Jun. 11—FLOYD COUNTY — Floyd Central Theatre Arts is one of eight high school theater programs in the country to perform on the main stage of the International Thespian Festival.

Floyd Central High School theater students were selected to perform the musical "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" at the festival, which takes place June 19-23 in Bloomington.

The Floyd Central students will stage two performances at the Indiana University Auditorium on June 22.

Floyd Central first staged "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" in November, and the show was adjudicated based on national art standards.

"It's a very rigorous process, and then in the end, they choose eight shows that get to be shown on the main stage, which is a national platform because every student at the festival gets to see the show," Floyd Central Theatre Director Brooklyn Chalfant said.

"So thousands of kids from all over the world get to see it, which is incredible because it's the largest audience that any high school show is ever going to have," she said.

The program will offer two "encore performances" of the show at Floyd Central's auditorium on June 15 and 16 at 7 p.m.

This will be Floyd Central's 19th main stage performance at the International Thespian Festival.

"The Mystery of Edwin Drood" is a comic musical based on an unfinished novel by Charles Dickens. The show features different endings and the audience votes on what ending they would like to see.

This format means that the show is different every night, and the multiple endings present a particular challenge for students.

"The audience votes on which character they want to see as the detective, and then they choose the murderer," Chalfant said. "There's five options for detectives, there's eight options for the murderer, and then there's 16 different combinations of lovers at the end."

The musical is a "show within a show" portraying a Victorian theater company's production of "The Mystery of Edwin Drood."

"More than anything, it's just a good night of theater," Chalfant said. "You're going to go and laugh your head off. I think it's so funny."

The format of the show allows many students "to shine" in the musical, she said.

"Typically a musical might have two or three leads, but this has 10, so there's just opportunities for kids to demonstrate their talents on a level that a lot of musicals can't afford students," Chalfant said.

Ruby Miller, a graduating senior at Floyd Central, is the dance captain and one of the lead roles in "The Mystery of Edwin Drood."

The students began rehearsing early at the beginning of the past school year, and to help memorize the different endings, many of them are "self-choreographed" by students, she said.

"We had so many rehearsals where we would just go through every possible ending so it's definitely time-consuming, and it can be a little monotonous sometimes, but it really helped us all memorize it," Miller said.

Chalfant describes the show as "super fun" for the students and the audience.

"We had people who would come see the show once just because they heard about it and then tell us after the show, I can't wait to see it again because I want to see what happens if this person wins," she said.

As they prepare for the upcoming festival performances, the students have been working hard in rehearsals, she said.

"We had to revisit a lot of the blocking and the choreography, and the students work really hard on their own to remember their line and remember all of the stagings," Chalfant said. "Then we've had rehearsals for three to four hours every day just reviewing what they have already learned and reminding them, but a lot of it is muscle memory."

The upcoming encore performances are not only a chance for students to practice for the festival, but they also raise funds for the costs of producing the musical.

Chalfant said the performances will help pay for the licensing to produce the show and other costs of taking the show to Bloomington.

In addition to performing the musical, students will have many other opportunities at the upcoming festival, including workshops, networking and auditions for theater professionals.

Students will also attend the other performances from schools across the country.

Miller said she is honored that Floyd Central was picked for the upcoming performance, and she is excited to perform for such a large audience.

"It's really nice to be able to share our art form with other people who also love the same art form and other people that appreciate it," she said. "It's just a super cool festival, and there's so many opportunities."

New Albany High School has also appeared multiple times at the International Thespian Festival, and the NAHS program was selected last year to perform on the main stage.

Chalfant said that "there's no question" that NAFCS "is one of the best places to study the performing arts."

"We're not even a performing arts school," she said. "We're just a regular public high school. New Albany making it last year and then us doing this year, especially after the pandemic... we're back and better than ever."