MIFA DISTRICT FESTIVAL INFORMATION
Welcome to Stevenson High School and our 2018 District Festival. We are excited to offer our space for a combined mainstage and studio site. I expect, based on those joining us, we will have a wonderful and successful day and get to welcome Lamphere to MIFA, participating in both divisions. IT SHOULD BE NOTED that we will be sharing the building with a Science Olympiad tournament, but we have worked to make sure both organizations are serving their guests at a high level. Things worked just perfectly last year under the same circumstances. We will have signs and helpers all over the place.
Planning a visit: We are open to visitors most all of January. We work after school 2:15-5:00 almost every day, so if you want to visit just float me some options. Keep in mind we have things like MLK Jr off and ½ day for finals in mid Jan.
Contact info: I don’t use my classroom, so if you need me call/or text my cell or shoot me an email. My student producers will keep an eye on email questions and get back to you ASAP. Cell phone: 248-320-0536 Email:
Location: We are at 39701 Dodge Park, Sterling Heights MI, 48313.
Registration: We will do our best to highlight the door we expect you to come in. We really don’t want people entering the actual auditorium lobby doors due to a small lobby and the draft it will provide. Instead, we use the doors 50’ away that service us and athletics. I will try to have a giant sign specifying which door is for us and which is for Science Olympiad. Right inside our doors we will be ready for you. Please bring four copies of your program and four copies of your Judge Information Form. After registration, your group will be escorted to your homeroom and/or to visit the theater and two student hosts will be assigned to assist you throughout the day.
Load in/Load out: The way our school is laid out, our homerooms are far away. This isn’t a function of sharing the building, but of how all event based spaces are away from the education spaces. With that in mind, I will be supplying small storage areas for all studio shows in a hallway that is off of stage right. If you need to use shop doors for anything, we can arrange that. I would assume, though, that you can either bring your stuff in with you when you register, or you can have your materials taken around the back of the building to the back green room doors. We have four mainstage shows, so I will need to do some fancy shop shuffling. SHS’ material will be in the hall off of stage right with the studio storage spaces, but I can only fit two shows in the shop at one time, so……. I’ll get back to you on that.
Scenery Storage: Each mainstage school will be allocated a roughly 15’ by 10’ (or similar square footage) space to store scenery. Wall access is not guaranteed. There is little protection from the outside into the scene shop, so we will do our best to avoid any icy/wet floor issues. The scene shop is on street level, and we will also our best to make sure a truck can back reasonably close in. If load in is a big deal for you, let’s talk. The scene shop loads directly on to the stage, as noted in the layout pdf. Per what has been tradition, all schools will load around the performance area BEFORE their spike time starts. We will be coming from a variety of places, so this equalizes opportunities.
Playing Space(s):Both spaces match what companies will find at the state festival. The mainstage playing space is 36’ wide by 24’ deep. Where and how curtains affect the space is available on the attached pdf. There are three curtains that can be closed via stage right pullies. The main drape is dark blue and travels on an arc that follows the curve of the forstage. The drawing will show you how the other two drapes fit in and around the acting area.
The studio playing space is 30’ wide by 15’ deep. The upstage edge of the acting area will be against the mid black traveler. I HIGHLY recommend, in order to plan for the realities of the state site, that you treat the curtain as a wall and do not use the middle of the curtain as an entrance. There will be space in the two upstage corners for entrances and exits. We will place seating and judges on the stage by the acting area both stage left and right to best give a thrust/studio feel. In order to allow all festival attendees to see, we will not place seating on the downstate edge, but use the two center sections of the main house. This will supply a slightly different viewing experience for some, but I’ve been told it works well. Please see the attached drawing for specifics.
Adjudication Panel
Bill Mathis: English Teacher at Romeo HS, Bill student taught in theater and English and works as an assistant director at one of the schools in our district not involved in MIFA. He is an experienced actor, coach, and debate judge.
Mike Merluzzi: Senior Theater major at Michigan State University. He is an experienced actor and scenic designer. He already has professional scenic work to his credit.
Amy Ricker: Active director both for high school programs and community theater in and around Macomb County.
Lighting: The traditional areas will be available for mainstage productions. They will equally divide the space into nine pools. Studio productions will have access to a six pool set up, again equally divided among the acting area. We will be refocusing pools 1-6 during our “switch over” break. There will be cyc lights (red, blue and green) and a cyc drop available. Please be warned, though: if you choose to use the cyc, it is a pull across curtain and is not smooth and nice looking. It also eliminates any opportunity for an upstage crossover. The colors are nice, but it won’t look like a traditional cyc in most high schools. There will be a wide variety of 20amp outlets available throughout the back stage, pit, and back of house areas. If you have special needs, please let me know. I don’t want to do a lot of work if no one needs it, but equally I want to make sure everyone is cared for.Both studio and mainstage light we be controlled in the booth at the back of the house.
Sound: The house system will only be used for announcements. All sound needs are the responsibility of each individual participant. There are headsets available in the booth, backstage, and can be run to multiple spots in the house. If you need anything special, again please let me know.
Timing/Schedule: The following is the timing protocol that we will be using at our site. The timing of spike is 25 minutes for mainstage and 15 for studio. All performances are 45 minutes as prescribed in Speech Activities. The 10 minutes between the previous performance and the next spike is “shared time” to strike the previous show and move the next show into the space. Even though each studio show only has 15 minutes for spike, I felt the need to keep the same time pattern as the traditional mainstage scheduling so that the judges can give each studio show and subsequent scoring the appropriate amount of time. Therefore, there is probably no reason for the “next” show to wait in the hallway backstage, but simply be back stage a few minutes before spike time.
Warm Ups: The Warm-Up Room is located in the Band Room down the hall from the theater. Your group has exclusive use of this room for one hour prior to your spike time.
Critique Room: The Critique Room is located in the Choir Room (next to the Band Room).
Homerooms: These are TBD once I have a good handle on how many students each school has and how I can accommodate two large groups. They will all be in the same block and will be far away from any Science Olympiad rooms. Please be sure that these areas are treated with respect and are returned to their original condition prior to awards.
Food Service: I expect all schools coming will be purchasing lunch from the onsite booster parents. I don’t mean I am telling you to, but I believe that is the policy of all schools joining us to buy lunch there. If your parent group/students are planning to cater your own food that is no problem, just please let me know so I can adjust numbers. I know, of course, you will bring a certain amount of food and that is understandable. Food will be available in two different places. Near the main entrance, there will be a table set up for the majority of the day selling snacks and drinks, and will start with some breakfast items. The lunch service will be sold in the hallway halfway between the theater and homerooms. As you can imagine, no food or drink in the Aud.
Lunch was the one sticking point we have trouble with in sharing the building with Science Olympiad. Science Olympiad has full use of the cafeteria. THEREFORE, we will allow schools to eat in the halls by the homerooms, or CAREFULLY in their homeroom. We are working to ID enough tiled floor rooms to help with that issue. We know we are taking a slight risk, but this was the only roadblock to being a host so we are going to do our best. I think we will offer an early lunch service just for Anchor Bay because of timing and the size of their troupe. If anyone has needs or thoughts, don’t hesitate. You are my guests and I want us to treat you as such.
As this point lunch will consist of all the usual snacks like chips and candy, a variety of drink choices, a few healthy choices of fruits and/or veggies, Jet’s pizza and some manor of sandwich. Of course you never know what else may show up. We understand we have a captive audience, so we will do our best to price things fairly.
I hope this gives you enough information to get the ball rolling. It won’t be too long before we all get together for the thrill of district festival. As things come up, don’t hesitate to contact me. I won’t get bothered at all if you pepper me with questions. Don’t feel the need to hold them until you have a bunch. Also, your students are more than welcomed to email me themselves. If you want students to make phone calls, give me a heads up and we can schedule specific time. Like all of you, I hardly ever sit down. Anything else?!?!?!