What is this festival?

For about 40 years Fullerton College has held a high school theatre festival as an outreach and a way to help young performers, technicians, and designers along their educational journey.

Given the ever changing world, starting in 2024 the festival changed to a full technical theatre festival.  The technical areas are often looked at as a secondary to performance in most festivals, though most of the gainfully employed workers in entertainment are in the technical side.  We wanted to make a festival to celebrate the young technicians, designers, and stage mangers and encourage them toward this exciting career pathway in entertainment.  Along with this change, we have added a few more relevant categories  to the competition to further their visibility.

To remain centered our educational goals, we have included many workshops offerings with the understanding many high schools have few if any technical faculty to gain knowledge from.  Our hope is to help educate current high school technicians, designers, and stage managers and provided support to those often overwhelmed and under equipment high school theatre teachers.

What is the background you look for in judges?

With the change in our festival, we are looking for working professional alumni as well as professionals working at organizations that often employee our students such as Disney, Knotts Berry Farms,  IATSE 504, etc.

What should I expect after I register?

Upon clicking the submit button on the registration page, you should receive an automatic confirmation email.  This email means you have officially been added to the general judges’ database for this year.  You should receive a Judge’s Agreement through email within a week after registration.  This is an Adobe Sign document sent by our department admin.  Please take action to sign the agreement as soon as possible since it must be signed, initialed, and processed by the college prior to the festival date.  Without the signed agreement on file with the college we cannot have you judge for us.

Once the registration site closes, you will receive additional information such as a more detailed schedule of events and parking information.  Anyone with outstanding paperwork will be personally emailed as the paperwork deadline approaches so that we don’t miss anyone.

I don’t know how to use Adobe Sign

1. Upon receiving the Adobe Sign document via email, click on the link labeled “Click here to review and sign”
2. Once Adobe Sign has opened click on the yellow “Start” tag.
3. Fill out the yellow highlighted areas. You can use the yellow “Next” tag to go to the next area to be filled out.
4. When ready to sign, click on the signature area. A pop-up window will appear, and you will have 4 options on how to sign: Type, Draw, Image, or Module. You can choose your preferred method at the top of the pop-up window.
5. Click “Apply” to add the signature to the document.
6. When ready to submit, press the “Click to Sign” button at the bottom of the page.
7. Additional help can be found at: Adobe Sign Video Tutorial

What do you do when you judge?

When you arrive, we ask that you check in at the judge’s tent so you can complete additional private paperwork such as your W9 and invoice so we can ensure you can be paid.  Once the paperwork is completed you will receive your room and category assignments.

Following check-in, an orientation is held which will help to give you specific information and answer any questions or concerns you have.  Following orientations, we typically supply a complimentary lunch and/or breakfast until rounds begin.  Each round is broken into 4 one-hour sessions with a 30-minute break midway through. You’ll rank every entry in each session. Those rankings are then tabulated to create the finalists.  We attempt to place two to three judges in each preliminary session.  During finals, we typically have about five to seven judges per session, which rank every finalist in that session. When ranking, we ask judges to leave constructive comments for the performers, which will be shared with them upon the completion of the festival.

When do I get paid?

Our payments do take a while to process since they must go through the bureaucracy of the college.  Normally, judges receive payment through the mail 6 to 8 weeks following the festival.  We do everything we can to expedite the process, but much of it is out of our hands.

Which categories need judges?

• 20 – Tech Olympics
• 21 – Lighting Design
• 22 – Costuming Design
• 23 – Graphic Design
• 24 – Scenic Design
• 25 – Makeup Design
• 26 – Sound Design
• 27 – Stage Management

What workshops are we offering?

• 40 – Theatrical Makeup
• 41 – Wigs for Theatre
• 42 – Stage Management
• 43 – Technology in the Scene Shop
• 44 – Intimacy Basics for Stage Management
• 45 – Period Paper Dress Making
• 46 – Combat for the Stage Manager
• 47 – Sound Design on a Budget
• 48 – Getting to Know the Costuming Industry
• 49 – How to be the Best A2
• 50 – Entertainment as a Job Talkback
• 51 – Women in Technical Theatre Panel
• 52 – Gigging 101
• 53 – Theme Park Technical Entertainment Panel
• 54 – Period Paper Dress Making
• 55 – Lighting
• 56 – Scenic Painting
• 57 – How to Produce a Show
• 58 – Rigging/Safety in the Theatrical Environment

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