CA State Thespian Festival 2026

When taking on a role, you are always bringing your unique self to the embodiment of that character. While the ghosts of previous actors may haunt audience perception, ultimately the material is your to create—not Cynthia Erivo, Laura Bell Bundy, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Telly Leung, or any other great originator on a cast album—yours. What do we do when we only have an album or YouTube slime tutorials as our guide? We dig into the text—libretto, lyric, and score—and explore the material as ourselves, making active physical, musical, and storytelling choices that resonate with us. What happened right before the song? Why are you singing it? What do you want? What is your point of view in the material? Where is the moment of change and/or discovery? The answers to these questions aren’t just in the material itself, but that personalization of material will provide artist agency that we all strive to achieve. This workshop will benefit those trying to find a place for themselves in this artform in order for you to learn how to create bold performances and auditions.

When taking on a role, you are always bringing your unique self to the embodiment of that character. While the ghosts of previous actors may haunt audience perception, ultimately the material is your to create—not Cynthia Erivo, Laura Bell Bundy, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Telly Leung, or any other great originator on a cast album—yours. What do we do when we only have an album or YouTube slime tutorials as our guide? We dig into the text—libretto, lyric, and score—and explore the material as ourselves, making active physical, musical, and storytelling choices that resonate with us. What happened right before the song? Why are you singing it? What do you want? What is your point of view in the material? Where is the moment of change and/or discovery? The answers to these questions aren’t just in the material itself, but that personalization of material will provide artist agency that we all strive to achieve. This workshop will benefit those trying to find a place for themselves in this artform in order for you to learn how to create bold performances and auditions.

Where did the fun go? After watching thousands of auditions every year, I want to help encourage folks to make bold choices, take risks, and play when they get up there and sing. When we are kids, we make up stories and play pretend with ease. As we grow, we are often faced with insecurities, questioning the decisions we make, and by extension the actions we take as performers, and the musical sounds we achieve while singing. In auditions, when everything seems high stakes, over preparation often removes the very reason we want to go into performance—to tell stories, create characters, and have fun being someone else. This workshop will encourage folks to take risks, raise the stakes, and remember to have fun! This is applicable to both the college audition—where you are auditioning to LEARN, grow, and train, and the professional audition—where you want to show you can bring choices to the audition room and collaborate. We’ll workshop material, choose action, and remember to play!