The lights were hung, the set was up and the curtain rose to perform “Mamma Mia!” one last time earlier this month in Wichita. Originally performed at West in November, the show was one of only five high school shows in Kansas chosen to perform at the Kansas Thespians Festival in front of 1,800 student thespians. 

Performing the show nearly 200 miles away from Olathe came with transporting all of the technical elements of the show. The entire cast and crew of over 100 people spent the weekend prior to the conference in 12-hour “loading rehearsals,” in which they practiced taking apart all of the tech equipment and then immediately putting it back together. 

Lighting designer Andro Miller described part of the process for his crew.

“During the loading rehearsals at West, I would lead my crew, and we would hang all of our electrics, which is 37 lights, and then we’d do a mock talking to the stage hands at the theater.  We would practice telling them things like the colors to put in their lights because we weren’t allowed to touch them. Then, we would plug them in to make sure they worked,” Miller said.  

After the weekend of assembling and disassembling the show, a dress rehearsal and send-off performance at West, it was time to take the show on the road. Miller and his crew, along with sound crew and select scenic crew members, had the opportunity to travel to Wichita a day before the set arrived and the performance to begin setting up. During this time, the students got the opportunity to start working with the professional stage hands at the Century II Theater. 

“I’m going into lights professionally so my favorite part of it all was getting to kind of see what my future will look like,” Miller said. “Getting to see my lights in front of that big of an audience was really eye opening.”

Leading up to the festival, actors were challenged to remember blocking, choreography and vocals for the show two months after the original performance. This became an even bigger challenge when lead actress, senior Ashlyn Robertson came down with the flu less than a week before the performance, leaving her understudy, Aliya Wolfe to fill the role.

Wolfe, a freshman, found out she might have to perform at the send-off performance the next Tuesday, while at the loading rehearsal the Saturday before the festival. She was then informed the following Monday that Robertson was still very sick and would not be able to perform on Thursday at the festival.

“I was both really excited and getting really scared,” Wolfe said. “I had just come back from doing another show, so when I got the call that there was a chance [that Robertson couldn’t perform] and I should probably start reviewing the material, it was both really stressful and really fun.” 

As an understudy, Wolfe questioned her acting ability in comparison to the lead cast of experienced upperclassmen, but performing alongside them at the festival ultimately proved to be a massive confidence boost.

“I learned so much,” Wolfe said. “It was just a really good experience and such a good chance for exposure.”  

Wolfe was not the only student that gained exposure during the festival. In addition to performing “Mamma Mia!” students prepared and competed in International Thespian Excellence Awards, or “Thespys.” Thespys are an opportunity for students both in the technical and acting parts of theatre to show their skills and get recognized by what they love doing. Thespys are performed either online or during the festival and take a lot of preparation. 

Lily Smith, stage manager for “Mamma Mia!” decided to do a technical thespian event in the category of stage management. She had to prepare a binder full of documents that she designed and used for “Mamma Mia!”. In addition, she had to prepare specific parts of her prompt book, which is used to call the show’s cues.

 “I started preparing my Thespy about right after “Mamma Mia!” ended, and it probably took about a month,” Smith said.

Five students, including Smith, received perfect scores on their Thespys. Another one of these students was Addy Davis. She has been involved in theatre and attended the festival all four years in high school having done a Thespy every single year. KTF is important to her, and she has always loved attending.

“Me, Ashlyn [Warren] and Lydia Treff were the first freshmen to ever receive a superior at KTF, so it means a lot to me,” Davis said.

This year was her first year doing a Thespy alone and she never expected to get a perfect score. Like Smith, she had a lot of preparation to do beforehand.

 “About an hour a day, just like getting up and doing it [performing her song],” Davis said. 

Davis was very anxious and was not expecting to get a perfect score her first year doing a Thespy alone. 

“It was just surreal because you hear about everyone getting perfect [scores], and you never think it’s gonna happen to you, and suddenly it does,” Davis said.

Although these two did a phenomenal job on their Thespys, they weren’t the only ones that were able to qualify for ITF (International Thespian Festival). Olathe West had twenty three students that were able to qualify by getting a Superior rating on their events. These students will get the opportunity to show their skills to international judges and students from all over the United States. It will be taking place in Bloomington, Indiana in June 2026. 

In addition, three students from West, each in a different category, won a 1,000 dollar scholarship, the first time in Olathe West history. Teddy Garcia won the future educator scholarship, Jenna Campbell won a Technical theatre scholarship and Ashlyn Warren won a Performance scholarship. 

Garcia felt that winning the scholarship helped confirm his passion for theater, and solidified what he wants to do for the rest of his life.

“I was very very grateful. I was very happy that I won the award because I care a lot about teaching others and theater matters. It just meant a lot to be recognized,” Garcia said.