Chapter Select Showcase

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Chapter Select One-Act Showcase

ITF's Chapter Select One-Act Showcase assembles the best one-acts from the International Thespian Society's 40+ chapters.

Titania, queen of the fairies, falls in love with Bottom, a man magically transformed into a donkey.

Do you live for discovering a new favorite show? ITF's Chapter Select Showcase includes a robust lineup of one-act productions from around the world. Troupes selected to perform must be recommended by their chapter. Join the audience to discover rich new theatrical works, rediscover a classic piece from a fresh new angle, and celebrate these outstanding student works!

ITF 2023 Chapter Select Lineup

#Viral

By Maria McConville
Los Alamitos High School | Troupe 7944 | Los Alamitos, CA
Directed by Stacy Castiglione

Monday, June 19th | 2:00PM - 3:15PM EDT | Room: Ruth N. Halls Theatre | Venue: Lee Norvelle Theatre & Drama Center

Five high school girls recount a cruel locker room bullying incident that is initially cloaked in secrecy, but ultimately goes viral online. What happens next forces the students to question their respective roles in the events that unfolded on that fateful day.

The 146 Point Flame

By Matt Thompson
Empire High School | Troupe 7057 | Tucson, AZ
Directed by Richard Gremel

Monday, June 19th | 8:45AM - 10:00AM EDT | Room: Ruth N. Halls Theatre | Venue: Lee Norvelle Theatre & Drama Center

In this play based on the historic 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City, four young women share their dreams, thoughts, fears, and feelings about their ultimate destinies through words, movement, and music. Vincenza, an Italian immigrant, shares her last night on Earth with romance, smiles, and dancing. Tessa celebrates her life with a story about her brother and mother. Sisters Lena and Yetta meditate on the strength and endurance of moving from Russia to America and the parallels of moving from life to the afterlife. Touching a poetic, The 146 Point Flame illuminates the definition of human courage.

Bat Boy: The Musical

By Keythe Farley, Brian Flemming & Laurence O’Keefe
Episcopal High School | Troupe 88800 | Baton Rouge, LA
Directed by Lily McGill

Wednesday, June 21st | 12:15PM - 1:30PM EDT | Room: Ruth N. Halls Theatre | Venue: Lee Norvelle Theatre & Drama Center

Based on a story in The Weekly World News, this musical comedy/horror show about a half-boy/half-bat creature who is discovered in a cave near Hope Falls, West Virginia is a hilarious send-up to tabloid culture. For lack of a better solution, the local sheriff brings Bat Boy to the home of the town veterinarian, where he is accepted by the family and taught to act like a “normal” boy. But when he naively tries to fit in with the narrow-minded people of Hope Falls, they turn on him. A long-hidden secret may reveal the truth about Bay Boy, but will it save him?

Booby Trap

By Ed Monk
Mayfield High School | Troupe 2996 | Mount Las Cruces, NM
Directed by Knut Brekke

Friday, June 23rd | 2:00PM - 3:15PM EDT | Room: Ruth N. Halls Theatre | Venue: Lee Norvelle Theatre & Drama Center

In the near future, an American soldier sits in a combat zone, trapped by a land mine. As he waits to see what will happen to him, scenes from his past, present, and future unfold around him.

Boy Meets Girl: A Young Love Story

By Sam Wolfson
Pearl River High School | Troupe 5695 | Carriere, MS
Directed by Rebecca Carr

Wednesday, June 21st | 10:30AM - 11:45AM EDT | Room: Ruth N. Halls Theatre | Venue: Lee Norvelle Theatre & Drama Center

Follow Sam and Katie as they go through the trials and tribulations of love at the tender age of five in this hilarious and sweet take on young romance. From the decision to check the “yes” box on their boyfriend/girlfriend contracts to more serious conversations about past nap partners, Sam and Katie find themselves entering into a genuine relationship, all in the midst of worrying about the spelling bee, selling Girl Scout cookies, and figuring out what they want to be when they grow up.

I Never Saw Another Butterfly (One-Act Edition)

By Celeste Raspanti
Brownell Talbot College Preparatory School | Troupe 8093 | Omaha, NE
Directed by Jennifer Morgan

Wednesday, June 21st | 8:45AM - 10:00AM EDT | Room: Ruth N. Halls Theatre | Venue: Lee Norvelle Theatre & Drama Center

A beautiful and moving play based on the poetry created in a concentration camp by Jewish children of Prague, I Never Saw a Butterfly tells the story of over 15,000 Jewish children who passed through Terezin, only about a hundred of which were still alive when it was liberated at the end of WWII. One of the survivors, Raja, who served as a teacher to the other children, tells the true story of the camp. There were no butterflies at Terezin, of course, but for the children, butterflies became a symbol of defiance, making it possible for them to live on and play happily while waiting to be transported.

Including Shooter

By Nicholas C. Pappas
Owensboro High School | Troupe 3161 | Owensboro, KY
Directed by Carolyn Greer

Tuesday, June 20th | 12:15PM - 1:30PM EDT | Room: Ruth N. Halls Theatre | Venue: Lee Norvelle Theatre & Drama Center

In this absorbing play, one unforgettable character after another helps us answer the question: How do you talk about something unthinkable? Through a series of interweaving scenes and monologues, Including Shooter offers a way to begin by exploring the context of a fictional shooting.

Know Your Role

By Brandi Owensby
Hoboken High School | Troupe 7268 | Hoboken, NJ
Directed by Derek Kinnear

Friday, June 23rd | 5:30PM - 6:45PM EDT | Room: Ruth N. Halls Theatre | Venue: Lee Norvelle Theatre & Drama Center

No sooner do we leave the womb than we’re bombarded by society’s expectations about gender. If you’re a boy, you’re like this. If you’re a girl, you’re like that. Hilarious and heartbreaking, Know Your Role explores how these expectations affect teens’ everyday lives. Whether it’s how they dress, the rules of dating, body image, parental pressures, or a host of other ways, the modern teenagers in this story reveal how gender expectations affect them… and how they “role.”

Macbeth

By William Shakespeare
Eastlake High School | Troupe 5687 | Sammamish, WA
Directed by Adam Richardson

Monday, June 19th | 12:15PM - 1:30PM EDT | Room: Ruth N. Halls Theatre | Venue: Lee Norvelle Theatre & Drama Center

Set in medieval Scotland (and perhaps partly based on a historical account), Macbeth charts the bloody rise to power of a Scottish general who is informed by three witches that he is destined to become the King of Scotland. Emboldened by the mysterious trio, and encouraged by his wife, Macbeth goes on a journey to fulfill the prophecy. A dark and moody play, Macbeth explores reality and illusion; ambition and kingship; light and life; darkness and death; and asks us to consider how much control we really have over our fate.

Mere Mortals

By David Ives
Alma High School | Troupe 6338 | Alma, AR
Directed by Danny Hobson

Monday, June 19th | 10:30AM - 11:45AM EDT | Room: Ruth N. Halls Theatre | Venue: Lee Norvelle Theatre & Drama Center

Mere Mortals eavesdrops on a lunch hour on a girder fifty stories over the street, as three construction workers share increasingly amazing secrets of their past.

Our Place

By Terry Gabbard
Thompson High School | Troupe 5189 | Alabaster, AL
Directed by Hannah Sizemore

Thursday, June 22nd | 8:45AM - 10:00AM EDT | Room: Ruth N. Halls Theatre | Venue: Lee Norvelle Theatre & Drama Center

An unassuming dock extending out onto a small lake serves as the backdrop of various stories. On a cool autumn night, Jake arrives with Holly at the secluded spot and things seem perfect until Anne and her date, Lyle, arrive. On another day, early in the morning, Beth has plans to spend the day with her dad at their favorite fishing place. She has high hopes for catching some sunshine, a few fish, and her dad’s fading memories. Another story involves Al, who arrives at the dock with his family and has high expectations for their planned canoe trip that his family doesn’t share. In another scene, Cory and Liberty are having a picnic lunch, but a realization about tuna-fish sandwiches sends a shockwave through their relationship and brings about questions of who they are and what lies ahead for them. Finally, Stanley escapes the hardships of his life to blow off some steam on the dock when Sidney, his 6-year-old sister, arrives. All he wants is for her to go away, but she insists on staying. Each group discovers the true meaning of Our Place – both comedic and tragic.

Our Place

By Terry Gabbard
Martinsburg High School | Troupe 502 | Martinsburg, WV
Directed by Magdelyn Kelly

Friday, June 23rd | 8:45AM - 10:00AM EDT | Room: Ruth N. Halls Theatre | Venue: Lee Norvelle Theatre & Drama Center

An unassuming dock extending out onto a small lake serves as the backdrop of various stories. On a cool autumn night, Jake arrives with Holly at the secluded spot and things seem perfect until Anne and her date, Lyle, arrive. On another day, early in the morning, Beth has plans to spend the day with her dad at their favorite fishing place. She has high hopes for catching some sunshine, a few fish, and her dad’s fading memories. Another story involves Al, who arrives at the dock with his family and has high expectations for their planned canoe trip that his family doesn’t share. In another scene, Cory and Liberty are having a picnic lunch, but a realization about tuna-fish sandwiches sends a shockwave through their relationship and brings about questions of who they are and what lies ahead for them. Finally, Stanley escapes the hardships of his life to blow off some steam on the dock when Sidney, his 6-year-old sister, arrives. All he wants is for her to go away, but she insists on staying. Each group discovers the true meaning of Our Place – both comedic and tragic.

Polkadots: The Cool Kids Musical

By Melvin Tunstall III, Douglas Lyons, and Greg Borowsky
North Moore High School | Troupe 4945 | Robbins, NC
Directed by Kimberly Fielder-Jones

Thursday, June 22nd | 12:15PM - 1:30PM EDT | Room: Ruth N. Halls Theatre | Venue: Lee Norvelle Theatre & Drama Center

Polkadots: The Cool Kids Musical follows 8-year-old Lily Polkadot who just moved to the “Squares Only” small town of Rockaway. As the first Polkadot in an all-Square school, Lily faces an almost impossible task of gaining acceptance from her peers. From daily bullying to segregated drinking fountains, Lily’s quest seems hopeless until she meets Sky, a shy Square boy whose curiosity for her unique polkadot skin blooms into an unexpected pal-ship. Inspired by the events of The Little Rock 9, Polkadots serves as a colorful history lesson, reminding us that our individual differences make us awesome, not outcasts.

Property Rites

By Alan Haehnel
Marianas High School | Troupe 5374 | Susupe, Saipan, CNMI
Directed by Harold Easton

Friday, June 23rd | 12:15PM - 1:30PM EDT | Room: Ruth N. Halls Theatre | Venue: Lee Norvelle Theatre & Drama Center

Kyle Macmanus has invested millions in a high-tech work of art: fifteen human-figure sculptures programmed to perform thousands of movements, monologues, dialogues, and more. But just when Kyle is about to sell the sculpture, it malfunctions; the figures are alive. As each one struggles to achieve autonomy, they begin a fatal race against their desperate owner’s destructive plan.

Queens

By Kristen Doherty
Prosper High School | Troupe 6800 | Propser, TX
Directed by Vicki Kirkley

Tuesday, June 20th | 10:30AM - 11:45AM EDT | Room: Ruth N. Halls Theatre | Venue: Lee Norvelle Theatre & Drama Center

King Henry VIII is trapped in purgatory, bound to his throne by a sinister fool and ghostly women in red. Here in his gilded cage, he is forced to relive the sins he committed against his queens, mistresses, and people over and over again for an eternity. The script integrates a multitude of original source documents: letters, eye-witness accounts, 16th-century children’s rhymes, and song lyrics.

Steel Magnolias

By Robert Harling
Davenport Central High School | Troupe 2951 | Davenport, IA
Directed by Ellianna Liljequist

Tuesday, June 20th | 8:45AM - 10:00AM EDT | Room: Ruth N. Halls Theatre | Venue: Lee Norvelle Theatre & Drama Center

Truvy’s beauty salon in Chinquapin, Louisiana, is where all the ladies who are “anybody” come to have their hair done, and where wisecracks and advice are dispensed as freely as shampoo. Set in the early 1980s, Steel Magnolias is both a comedy and a drama that follows events over the course of three years and how the women cope with their conflicts and celebrate their triumphs while remaining friends.

The Trench

By Oliver Lansley
Rock Ridge Performing Arts | Troupe 8104 | Ashburn, VA
Directed by Anthony Cimino-Johnson

Friday, June 23rd | 10:30AM - 11:45AM EDT | Room: Ruth N. Halls Theatre | Venue: Lee Norvelle Theatre & Drama Center

Inspired by the true story from WWI, The Trench follows Bert, a tunnel miner laying landmines in the trenches beneath France in an attempt to gain the upper hand on German soldiers. Bert’s life takes an unexpected turn when he receives a letter containing terrible news from home, sending him into mental and physical turmoil. After a landmine causes his tunnel to collapse, Bert discovers horrors beyond his imagination and realizes not everything in the darkness is what it seems. The line between fantasy and reality blurs as he embarks on an epic journey for survival questions what’s real, what’s not, and whether it even matters.

This Random World

By Steven Dietz
Huntingtown High School | Troupe 6904 | Huntingtown, MD
Directed by Derek Anderson

Monday, June 19th | 3:45PM - 5:00PM EDT | Room: Ruth N. Halls Theatre | Venue: Lee Norvelle Theatre & Drama Center

We want to believe that serendipity brings us together, but is that just a myth? Mining the comedy of missed connections, This Random World asks the serious question of how often we travel parallel paths through the world without noticing. From an ailing woman who plans one final trip to her daughter planning one great escape to her son falling prey to a prank gone wrong, this funny, intimate, and heartbreaking play explores the lives that may be happening just out of reach of our own.

Trifles

By Susan Glaspell
Salina Central High School | Troupe 639 | Salina, KS
Directed by Barbara Hilt

Friday, June 23rd | 3:45PM - 5:00PM EDT | Room: Ruth N. Halls Theatre | Venue: Lee Norvelle Theatre & Drama Center

An investigation begins after Mr. Wright is found murdered in his bed with a noose around his neck. The only suspect is his wife, who has been arrested on suspicion. The local sheriff and neighbor return to the Wright’s home with their wives to collect some of Mrs. Wright’s belongings and it’s when the men go upstairs that the true investigation begins downstairs. The women sort through seemingly mundane pieces of Mrs. Wright’s life, finding clues along the way. What will these women do with the insight they piece together?

Us and Them

By David Campton
Springfield Township High School | Troupe 1154 | Erdenheim, PA
Directed by Marlene Thornton

Monday, June 19th | 5:30PM - 6:45PM EDT | Room: Ruth N. Halls Theatre | Venue: Lee Norvelle Theatre & Drama Center

Two groups of wanderers, one from the east and one from the west, enter looking for a place to settle and arrive simultaneously at a fertile spot. At first friendly with each other, they agree to share the adjoining land and mark the line between their territories, but as time passes, suspicion grows. The line becomes a fence, the fence then becomes a wall, built higher and higher until neither side knows what the other is doing. Can they live together or will the mistrust grow to the point of conflict? This relevant, contemporary play is an exploration of how communities are built and destroyed and history often repeats itself.

Where Words Once Were

By Finegan Kruckemeyer
Warsaw Community High School | Troupe 5648 | Warsaw, IN
Directed by Melany Morris

Thursday, June 22nd | 10:30AM - 11:45AM EDT | Room: Ruth N. Halls Theatre | Venue: Lee Norvelle Theatre & Drama Center

Get ready for wordplay in this insightful adventure set in a dystopian time where language is rationed, a sentence can get you sentenced, the silent are rising, and a word can change the world. Young Orhan lives in a world where words are both very precious and very dangerous. Only 1,000 of them can exist; new ones are forbidden, and anything newly invented takes the place of an existing word, which is then illegal to utter. Those who disobey the rules are punished in the strongest way possible: they lose their right to speak and to be spoken of. They become only “. . . “ – a condition that causes them to slowly fade away. When Orhan accidentally takes a pen (a might weapon indeed!) from school, he sets in motion an adventure to reclaim lost words.

Want to Submit a Show?

View the Chapter Select Guide for complete details about the selection process.