Teen Thespian Guild

The Ritz Teen Thespian Guild gives area high school students the opportunity to find new ways of self-expression, while encouraging participation in live theatre.

As school budgets tighten, school systems are forced to make cuts in program funding. Typically, the arts are the first affected, with the school’s theatre program among the first to suffer and, if there is a choice, the school’s “non-musical” production gets the axe.

For over 20 years, high school students from the region have joined forces to put on one production in the fall. With direction from Ritz Theatre staffers, they choose a play, distribute audition notices, select a director, and have three or four performances on stage. Since the program’s inception in 2004 (as the Tiffin Area High School Players), membership has swelled to more than 50 high school students annually. The Ritz’s supplementing school arts programming has provided these students with an option that otherwise would not exist. The group is autonomous and is advised by Education Director Mika Gibson.