On Friday April 14, Thespian Society hosted the first annual Tech Olympics. In this event, teams of two to four competed in technical theater challenges in hopes of winning bragging rights and prizes. Teams competed in a total of five events including costume changes, props scavenger hunt, coiling, stage manager walking and table legging. 

“This is an event that has been talked about for a long time. Something similar is held at the annual Illinois High School Theater Fest, but we’ve never truly attempted to implement it at the school,” Thespian Vice President Alana Nisperos said. 

The purpose of the event was to showcase the hard work that the tech students do behind the scenes of drama clubs major productions.

“It’s a chance to let actors and non-techies walk in the crew’s shoes. It’s educational— participants get to experience a glimpse of what we do. It’s also an opportunity for techies to show off and teach their skills,” Nisperos said.

Throughout the event, contestants rotated through each station with judges ranking their overall performance in each category. Each team was timed for each event and given a rating for quality and efficiency. Then, the total points for each team were added to produce rankings with the highest ranking team winning gift cards. 

This year’s winning team was “Actors 4Lyfe” with teammates Camryn Caruso, Jon Gronski, Anika Reddy and Shea Holt. This team of actors pulled off the highest scores in the props scavenger hunt, stage manager walking and more. 

“We won most likely because we have all been involved in some sort of production at LHS and we know how certain tech aspects work,” Caruso said. 

Caruso and her three teammates have participated in productions since their freshmen years and are heavily involved with both Thespian Society and Drama Club. 

“My favorite part was being a team with some of my closest friends and learning more about my abilities off the stage. All of us are actors first, so understanding what it takes behind the scenes of a production was really eye opening,” Caruso said.

Overall, this event was a major success providing a fun and educational experience for all participants. The club hopes for this to grow into a yearly and schoolwide event.

“This type of event definitely has the potential to become something really big,” Nisperos said.