Twenty-seven students from the Francis Howell Drama Troupe 1917 traveled to St. Louis to participate in the annual Missouri ThesCon conference Jan. 9 through Jan. 11. 

“I did a musical duet with my friend, so we learned the music and then choreographed the dance, and we learned swing dancing tricks where he would flip me upside down over his arm in between singing breaks,” senior Emelaine Foster said. “We did a lot of practicing, and we sang through it a lot of times, so it was a cohesive duet.”

Among the troupe’s accomplishments, Francis Howell earned nine Excellent ratings on their individual and group events, junior Fynn McDermott performed in the All-State Show, Sweet Charity and McDermott and senior Reggie Richard received 10 audition callbacks.

“I was offered a $1000 scholarship from the State Fair and a $20,000 scholarship from Avila University. It’s amazing,” Richard said. “The process is fairly similar to a normal audition process. I went for a musical theatre audition, so I had to prepare a song and a monologue.” 

ThesCon offers the opportunity to compete in various sectors of theatre production, engage in workshops and network with other high school theatre students.

“To have a gathering of so many like-minded people, people like you in programs, and you just get to share your love of one thing,” Richard said, “[It is] one of the most amazing things that I could have ever been a part of.”