District Festival takes place over three days: a Thursday, Friday, and Saturday in early December. The first two days are the One Act festival held at the Clearwater campus of SPC. The final day of District Festival is the Individual Event day held at Gibbs High School in St. Petersburg. Here’s what each day of the festival might look like:
The Thursday and Friday are the two most relaxed days of the festival. When you aren’t performing your one act, the entire day is spent in the SPC theatre watching other schools’ one acts. There is a lunch break around midday. When performing, we follow the process of loading, preparing, performing, and unloading as described in the One Act page.
Those participating in district crew are a bit busier these days as they are required to assist with the festival, including preparing and sharing materials, manning the crew table, and selling concessions. More information about the role of district crew can be found on its page.
Students who are not in the one act or on district crew typically do not attend these days of the festival. However, they can attend as a spectators if interested. If you would like to attend as a spectator, please inform Mrs. Timberlake with plenty of advance so that she can register you as a spectator.
The Saturday of District Festival is often considered its main event, having the most participants and things to do. Individual events are performed all day in many classrooms across Gibbs’ campus. In addition to presenting your own IE’s, you can watch any other IE performances. It is encouraged to watch as many of our troupe’s performances as possible, but due to the quantity of events, its impossible to see them all. IE performance schedules are released before the festival date, so ask your friends for their times in order to coordinate a schedule. This is a long day beginning early in the morning and ending late at night, so come prepared with plenty of water, snacks, some money, and other supplies. The boosters provide dinner, but you will need more food for the day than that one meal.
After all of the IE’s are completed, the judges submit their results which are then compiled by district crew. Once all results are tallied, the critics’ choice and honorable mentions are announced in a dramatic reveal in the Gibbs courtyard. After they’re announced, all critics’ choice events go backstage to begin rehearsing the closing ceremonies.
In the evening, all participants travel to the Gibbs auditorium to watch the closing ceremonies, where all top honors events are recognized and all critics’ choice event perform. In addition, at this event, awards from the one acts are presented, and the one acts that will be progressing to state are announced. Closing ceremonies are a fun wrap up to the day which ends late at night.