Out of the 15 Red Bird Productions members who advanced from the Texas Thespian State Festival, 10 traveled to Indiana University at Bloomington for the June 22-29 International Thespian Festival.

Troupes from around the world attend the festival to see shows, go to workshops and compete in Individual Events.

Bellaire was represented in four of the IEs: solo acting, duet acting, solo musical and stage management. Senior Daniel Andrade was one of three students from Bellaire to compete in solo acting, where he prepared two “contrasting” monologues and performed them in under three minutes.

“[When I walked into the competition room, I was] like, ‘This is actually happening,’” Andrade said. “So much time had built up to it that I was anxious. But I was pretty confident since I had worked on [the monologues] tirelessly throughout the month. I was happy with what I had shown the judges, regardless of the outcome.”

Everyone from Bellaire was awarded an “Excellent” rank for their IE besides senior Reece Langland, who received a “Superior” in stage management.

Langland attended six workshops to prepare for the next festival’s IEs and a career in tech theater.

“I learned a lot of really good things about not just stage management, but leadership in general,” Langland said. “There [was] a really good stage management workshop [about] how to work with a team, so [the workshops didn’t] only apply to theater. [They] taught life skills.”

After competitions were over, the group met twice a day to watch a Main Stage performance put on by schools from across the country. Senior Olivia Gutierrez said her favorite show was “Kinky Boots.”

“You could tell that all of the people in that cast loved performing,” Gutierrez said. “They all wanted to be on that stage putting 110 percent into that show. The costumes, the set, the acting, everything in that show was amazing.”

Gutierrez was “comforted” that, at the festival, “everyone loved the same thing.”

“My favorite part [of the festival] was just knowing that everyone there loves theater and has a passion for it – like me,” Gutierrez said. “Just seeing the community around me and all of the people supporting one another when it comes to theater was very uplifting.”