- School District of Beloit
- Homepage
Edinburgh Trip was Full Theater Immersion
Being a theater student in high school can be a little frustrating. You spend hours perfecting a performance and, depending upon the school, perform for mostly family and friends.
Beloit Memorial High School 2024 graduate Sofia Romero thought about that when she was mingling with the crowds at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland.
“It was a lot of culture shock. Not just their way of living and diction, but how they greeted you and welcomed you,” said Romero, who was one of 16 Beloit Memorial High School students and recent graduates along with two teachers to make the trip. “It was just this mixing pot of people coming together to celebrate their common love for theater.”
Established in 1947, the Fringe is the largest performance festival in the world. It takes place every August (except 2020 due to COVID 19) and this year featured 3,317 different shows at 262 venues performed by groups from 58 different countries over 25 days.
It was the fourth time a theater group from Beloit Memorial High School has performed at the Fringe during Greg Wallendal’s time as director of the theater program, but it was the first trip to Scotland since 2016.
“It’s about an 18-month process just to get accepted,” Wallendal said.
It includes being nominated by a regional theater company or college program, submitting reviews of your shows, critiques of the work and being interviewed about the director’s philosophy of directing. It’s also not free. The program raises money, but the students in the end have to come up with the rest.
Wallendal took BMHS students to Edinburgh in 2010, 2013 and 2016.
“We’d set kind of a every three years cycle, but in 2019 I was just burned out,” Wallendal said. “We had three small kids at home. I just didn’t feel I could be away for two weeks. Then in 2020, well COVID hit.”
Last year, Wallendal said he looked at his program and thought there would be enough interest to make another trip. Sure enough, he got nine students who will be back at BMHS performing this year and seven who had just graduated.
Wallendal said the goal was to open their eyes to all the possibilities in theater.
“You get to see different styles or genres that you never see here,” Wallendal. “The people who go to the Fringe expects to see an edgy performance. This is a chance to try things you can’t in a high school play.
The group ended up performing a Bertolt Brecht play, “Fear and Misery of the Third Reich.” It was first performed in Paris in 1938, shortly a year before Nazi Germany invaded Poland, starting World War II. It’s not a piece you typically pitch as a fall play to the school administration.
Romero was grateful for the experience. The Fringe includes performers from all levels — high school, college, regional companies to professionals.
“I met people in the 20s, 30s, making a living doing something that I’ve been doing with childlike creativity since the fourth grade,” Romero said. “Just being there solidified for me that theater is a path that I could take.”
It’s a path several from Beloit Memorial have taken. A number of former theater students from Beloit Memorial are making a living in the world of performing arts. The list includes:
- Jonathan Bartz is a composer living in Los Angeles. His music has been heard and performed from Carnegie Hall in New York City to the scoring stages of Warner Brothers Studios.
- Mallie McCown is an actress, writer and producer who has been working in Los Angeles since 2013. In 2023, she finished producing her first feature film, “Dear Luke, Love Me.”
- Allante Walker is an associate producer of Talk Pittsburgh. His news career has taken him from LaCrosse to Knoxville, Tenn., to Pennsylvania just since 2016.
- Kolten Bell has been a theater professional since 2021, performing on touring shows of “A Christmas Story,” “Annie” and “Aladdin.”
Romero hopes to add her name to the list. At the end of August, she began her freshman year at Columbia College Chicago, a private college in downtown Chicago that focuses on the arts. Its majors include animation, video graphics, special effects, cinematography, video graphics and graphic design. Romero is focusing on musical theater.
“I specifically chose Chicago because the city has so many theater opportunities,” Romero said.
