West Boca Theatre Arts Academy exited 2022 with incredible accomplishments received from our annual theatrical competition, Thespys. Hosted by West Boca ourselves, we had High School Theater departments all around Palm Beach County attend our event. Led by Lance Blank, the District X Representative and the student reps, Jasmin Klein and Madison Ginsberg, all schools walked away glorified with excellents, superiors, and critic’s choice nominees in their individual events. 

Troupe 6760 of West Boca received 24 excellents, 53 superiors, 10 critic’s choice awards, and received the district representative title going to States for both a performance piece and a technical design. Lucas Brown and Paisley Kinkade’s duet of “Stud and a Babe” from the musical “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change” had the audience on their feet with laughter and awe. After speaking with senior Paisley Kinkade, she shared how she was “filled with so much joy” and was beyond happy that her and Lucas’s hard work had paid off. Paisley dreams of pursuing a career in theater as she has already received multiple callbacks from some universities. Humbled and honored, Lucas and Paisley will now be performing for hundreds of Thespians at the opening ceremonies at the Tampa Convention Center in March. 

Along with the duo, a solo technical piece made by Kelsey Bonner will also be presented in March to a new panel of judges on the state level. Kelsey had created a “costume construction” for the character Ophelia from the Shakespearian play of Hamlet. Merging both her love for the Elizabethan era and theater, she used her creative side to portray a character usually overlooked, as Ophelia goes beyond the surface level words of the play. She represents femininity and youth in a play that encompasses revenge and insanity.

West Boca continues to take performances to the state level as we also are main staging our Fall show of 1776 the Musical at Ferguson Hall in the Straz Center on Friday, March 17th, which is also ironically St. Patrick’s Day. West Boca’s performers and crew members will have a lot of luck that day as they graciously take a step into the world of professional theater for a night.  As West Boca enters 2023, a new set of bulls will be making their Tampa debut as they will be reviving their production of 1776 the Musical in upcoming months!