On Thursday Jan. 10, 40 West thespians went to attend The Missouri Thespian Conference at the Renaissance Hotel in downtown St. Louis.

Selected Running with Scissors members competed in the Improv Olympics along side over a dozen students who competed in Individual Events and a Tech Challenge. Five students received honors for their performances and future plans in the theatre industry. Senior Seth Betzler received the Bob and Marti Fowler Theatre Education Scholarship for his plans to major in Theatre Education in college.

“I had to create lesson plans, video taped myself teaching one of the lessons and wrote an essay about why I want to be a theatre teacher,” Betzler said, “After high school, I plan on attending Truman State University or Lindenwood University.”

Senior Rebecca Bouchard was the only Student Director to have a show accepted to be performed at the Conference.

“I had to send in the script and a proposal of why the show should be chosen,” Bouchard said, “It was cool to see my show on stage.”

Junior Ezgi Ilhan was admitted on the State Board officer Board in the summer of 2012. Brie McLemore from Ft. Zumwalt East, Cassidy Munie from Parkway North and Sydney Phillips from Strafford High School were admitted alongside Ilhan.

“There were about 300 people who elected me and the other girls,” Ilhan said, “I helped plan and run leadership and the ITS MO Conference.”

Junior Mary Lumley received a superior rating for Duet Acting Individual Event with the help of junior Dakota Payne for performing Venus In Fur, a two person play, by David Ives.

“The character of Vanda is a lot like me –> a hot mess. We had to edit the script to make it school appropriate,” Lumley said, “The performance was hectic. We arrived late. There was supposed to be a table and there wasn’t. We had to make all new blocking on the spot. It was really hard, but it worked out really well in the end.”

Senior Yvette Lu was a Performance Scholarship Finalist with 25 other high school students.

“The Performance Scholarship was open to any senior thespians in the state of Missouri, and up to five from each school were allowed to apply. Everyone submitted a video and resume to getacceptd.com and the video either included two monologues or a monologue and a clip of a song. I did a monologue from the One Act called “Power Lunch” by Alan Bell and I sang “Waiting for Life from Once on this Island”,” Lu said.

Lu is auditioning at New York University, University of Southern California, University of California Los Angeles and Yale University.

“And even though I didn’t win a scholarship, I was accepted into a few college theatre programs, so it has been a lift of weight off my shoulders,” Lu said.

The students returned home Saturday Jan. 12 with connections from college theatre representatives.

“I was very proud of all the students involved in the Conference,” Drama teacher Amie Gossett said, “We were one of the few schools who had students participate in all aspects of the conference.”