Recently the theater department organized a trip up to Greeley, Colorado to visit and see the University of Northern Colorado campus to do various activities. The trip included workshops, lunch, Cinderella the musical, and finally a tour of the UNC campus. Although the trip was almost all day the kids in the theater department seemed to be pumped about everything the whole entire trip. 

The trip began with theater workshops, the students that attended the trip were all assigned workshops to further their skills and learn deeper about the theater industry in college. There was plenty of different workshop options to learn from: Professional Musical Theatre Audition Techniques, Cuing to Music, Monologues: What Really Works, Directing: Using Stage Composition to Tell a Story, Cinderella Dance workshop, Design Portfolio Program Q&A, Zombie Prom: An Adventure in Character Building, Movement for the Actor, and Theatre Game Extravaganza. The workshops were overall really good and informative, “I learned about the monologues and what really works, it was basically going over how to know who and how your speaking to the audience so you don’t look like a crazy person talking to no one, it helps to makes your performance flow and it was really fun and nice to know,” Senior Joelle Richard quotes. 

Perhaps the best part of the day was lunch. You can’t go wrong with a nice chicken sandwich before the play. After the workshops the theater students stopped for a lunch break at Sexy Sammies, a local fast food restaurant which was a five minute walk from campus. If you think Chick-Fil-A is good, wait till you try Sexy Sammies, they have good quality chicken sandwiches and chicken tenders for a reasonable price. The restaurant is a low key, high rated restaurant and it has lots of delicious chicken food options to offer. This was a great place to stop and grab a quick bite to eat before the Cinderella play and tour of the campus. 

UNC has a great theater and arts programs. Right off the bat the storytelling of such a classic story was perfect and everyone who was in the theater enjoyed it and you could truly tell from the cheering and how engaged everyone really was. Senior Joelle Richards said, “Oh my gosh it was so good! I loved it, I’m a dance person so I especially loved the dance scenes and the colors, dresses, and especially the dress changes for Cinderella. I loved that. So it was very good.” I’d have to agree that every time there was a dress change no matter who the character was the audience went crazy for the actors. The show was about two and a half hours but it felt like the perfect amount of time. The actors were amazing and the set was perfect and especially the wardrobe was amazing.

The last activity we did to close out the trip was a tour of the UNC campus. Being able to see the whole campus was a really good experience and was a great chance for everyone to check out the campus just in case they wanted to consider it for their future. Junior Peyton Siders said, “I really like the campus. It was very cool architecturally and had a bunch of cool buildings and little things. The University center was very interesting and comfortable to be in, they had a lot of cool booths and stores throughout the campus.” During the tour we were able to go into several buildings including some of the dorms, even getting to go into some of the dorms to see the areas. Joelle Richards, who is attending UNC after she graduates, talked about what she thought about the campus, “I think the campus is really big, obviously not as big as CU or CSU but it’s still great. I also love the architecture, and it just overall seems like a really nice school and campus.” Although the tour was long, being able to experience and see the whole campus was like it was to look around and get a feel for the campus.

The workshops were very informative and oriented with tons of information to help learning students prepare for the next steps in the theater world. Let’s not forget the lunch was really good as well. “I really enjoyed the trip, I went last year and it’s just very informative and a good way to get away from everything and just be with people you love doing things you want to do,” Junior Peyton Siders quotes. 

The Cinderella play took up most of the trip, and it was definitely enjoyable to watch the next level of performing arts. Plenty of the students that attended the trip enjoyed the play, and they picked up on things that they can bring to the stage when they are performing on stage as well. Touring UNC was the final destination of the trip before departing back to the high school, it was a really cool experience to get to know the campus a little more and have an insight on the daily life of a UNC student. In all, it was a great experience for the theater department.