{"id":63755,"date":"2022-03-02T09:33:38","date_gmt":"2022-03-02T15:33:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=63755"},"modified":"2022-03-02T09:33:39","modified_gmt":"2022-03-02T15:33:39","slug":"hays-community-theatre-prepares-for-busy-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=63755","title":{"rendered":"Hays Community Theatre prepares for busy season"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>BY ELLA BURROWS\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hays Community Theatre\u2019s schedule of upcoming\nevents and performances includes a bit of everything. Whether people are into\nclassic Shakespeare or modern-day adaptations, they are sure to be entertained\nby the HCT this spring and summer as the theatre begins transitioning to\nnormal, post-COVID programming.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>HCT Board President Travis Grizzell is proud of the\nschedule and how HCT has responded and overcame the many challenges the pandemic\nposed. The theatre was hit hard by the pandemic and was even forced to close\nits doors for a period.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cCOVID took away our programming,\u201d Grizzell\nsaid. \u201cThe nature of theatre forces you to interact with each other so we had\nto, A, shut down, and B, reassess, which led us to C, innovate and find new\nways to connect with our audiences.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fortunately, HCT received several grants that\nallowed it to transition from in-person shows to a streaming format. Although the\ntransition posed many challenges, streaming performances allowed the theatre to\nreach a wider audience that could include families of cast members, community\nmembers and viewers from around the country and world.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The theatre is excited to be back to in-person\nprogramming with Drag Show being its next large-scale event at 8 p.m. March 26.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Although the community of Hays has had previous\ndrag shows, this will be the first time a drag event has been hosted recently.\nHCT is bringing back the show in hopes of reaching underserved audiences within\nthe community.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sophia Garrison, a Hays community resident and\nmember of the Gender and Sexuality Alliance on campus, said the event is a step\nin the right direction for everyone in the community of Hays and surrounding\nareas and helps demonstrate Hays\u2019 commitment to embracing the culture of the\noften underserved LGBTQ+ community.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cDrag is all about the freedom to express\nyourself through the art of gender,\u201d Garrison said. \u201cMidwestern LGBTQ+\ncommunities are often cheated out of an opportunity to express themselves at an\nevent that is safe and comfortable for them, let alone where they are\ncelebrated.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>HCT is currently accepting participants for the\nDrag Show contest. Applications and additional information can be found on the\ntheatre\u2019s website, https:\/\/www.hctks.com\/.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In addition to the Drag Show, the theatre will\nbe performing an 80\u2019s adaptation of William Shakespeare\u2019s \u201cA Midsummer Night\u2019s\nDream\u201d on April 29 and 30 and May 1. The production will feature 15 cast\nmembers.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>HCT chose that play in particular because Hays\ndoes not host a \u201cShakespeare in the Park\u201d event and because \u201cA Midsummer\nNight\u2019s Dream\u201d is easily adaptable for theatres that allowed them to put an 80\u2019s\ntwist on a classic Shakespearean play.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The group also will perform \u201cWizard of Oz,\u201d which\nit has never done previously. Those show dates will be July 28 to 30 in Fort\nHays State University\u2019s Beach\/Schmidt Performing Arts Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As HCT continues and begins preparing for the events,\nit will be in need of volunteers with any and all skillsets.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cPeople have this perception that they couldn\u2019t\nbe on stage so they can\u2019t volunteer,\u201d Grizzell said. \u201cBut there is so much more\nto the theatre than just the performance.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Grizzell said regardless of theatrical ability,\nHays Community Theatre encourages anyone to volunteer and encourages everyone\nto check out what the theatre has to offer in the coming months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BY ELLA BURROWS\u00a0 Hays Community Theatre\u2019s schedule of upcoming events and performances includes a bit of everything. Whether people are into classic Shakespeare or modern-day&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":63756,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3397,3398,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-area-news","category-campus-news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/HaysCommunityTheatreLOGO.jpg?fit=325%2C117&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63755","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63755"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63757,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63755\/revisions\/63757"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/63756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}