Thirty-six Antioch Community High School theatre students left for the University of Illinois campus on January fourth to participate in a three-day theatre festival.

The festival provides a number of different acting workshops designed to help students stretch their imaginations and to teach them useful acting skills. Festival provides a chance for students to attend productions chosen from schools exclusively from Illinois, as well as one show earning an All-state title, and one performance from the professional improvisational group from Chicago - Musical The Musical.

Head of the ACHS drama department, Michael Shehorn, commented that he enjoys taking the extra time to do this with the students because it, "gets them excited about doing theatre!" Shehorn has attended festival for the past sixteen years because he feels that it gives the students an important opportunity to see how theatre is preformed in both educational and non-educational settings. It also gives the students a more exciting representation of classic literary pieces; "The English department does a wonderful job with teaching the dramatic works of classic literature, but theatre is meant to be seen."

Sophomore Sean Gaynor attended festival for the first time this past week and reported that after visiting many different workshops and productions he felt that the classic Greek tragedy Antigone was, "Done very well."

Ryan Koczorowski, an Antioch senior and two year festival veteran said, "The workshops we attended were both entertaining and educational � my favorite was �How To Act 100%.�"

Michael Shehorn commented that this twenty-two year ACHS tradition is an important part of the year for him as well as for his students, "It gives us a chance to network with other actors/directors, and to appreciate the way that theatre varies from school to school."