The latest regional Arizona acting competition ended in success as 19 of the school’s theatre students qualified to compete at the International Thespian Festival. The theatre program walked away with 18 Superior and 11 Excellent scores.

For many of those students who get to compete at Nationals this summer, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

“You don’t know what to expect,” senior Juliet Johnson said. “The anticipation is the nerve wracking part, because you don’t know what the talent level is going to be there, you don’t know if there are gonna be scouts there or colleges or anything”.

The International Thespian Festival in an annual week-long theatre festival where theatre troupes, programs, and clubs gather to compete at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Perry Theatre has been one of the top-ranked programs in the State this year, and also had one of the largest qualifying numbers to attend the conference, which is the highest honor for high school theatre students.

“I’m kind of scared about nationals, but I’m also excited about new competition,” senior Ryan McGonagle said.

“It’s [going to be] a whole other scale of judging, and it’s a lot more precise and a lot more strategic, but I’m excited because it’s going to be another scale of competition that we’ll be dealing with,” junior Jacob Morris said.

For many students, this is their last opportunity to compete as a high school theatre student, since a majority of them are seniors this year.

“I’m really excited because we’ll be getting to take a trip with our APAC class,” said Brittany Isabel, a senior who received a Superior with Distinction on her monologue. “ [A lot of us are seniors, so] it’ll be one of our last times seeing each other. It’s going to be after graduation, so it’ll be like a reunion.”

While going to Nationals may seem like a situation taken from ‘Glee’, hard work has made it into a reality.