National Qualifier in Costume Designing: Kenzie Jenkins

Photo taken by Becca Kepes

The School House Rock Board is a part of Jenkin’s project. She will compete with the board in nationals for the International Thespian Society.

Fair Grove High School senior, Kenzie Jenkins, qualified for nationals at the International Thespian Society (ITS) State Conference in the costume design contest. For this competition, Jenkins had to design five different costumes over the show of her choice, which was “SchoolHouse Rock Live!”. 

The ITS conference offers events that are correlated to different aspects of theatre. Jenkins explained, “I had to design five different costumes, gather fabric swatches for each costume, create a display board, make a portfolio, and prepare a speech.”

Jenkins spent more than 40 hours planning the designs and an additional eight hours of sketching each of them. She put in additional hours finding fabric swatches, creating boards, and making her portfolio.

Over the last four years, Jenkins has had experience designing and creating costumes for the theatre department. Leroy Barker, Fair Grove Theatre and Speech Teacher, shared that Jenkins has to meet challenges that come with creating costumes and has a leadership position in overseeing the cohesiveness of the costumes throughout a production. 

Barker stated, “Sometimes, she designs and creates costumes from start to finish, other times she may work with others in our department with design ideas or actors provided pieces of costumes.”

At the state conference, Jenkins set up her costume display and presented in front of a panel of three judges. During the competition, students do not compete head to head, rather they are judged on their own merits. The student has to score a superior rating from each one of their judges to move on to the next level. 

Jenkins elaborated on what a typical presentation would look like, “Students come in, set up their display boards, place their portfolios on the judges table, and then begin their speeches which have to meet certain criteria, such as description of how the costumes support the theatrical performance, contains research, and demonstrates critical thinking skills.”

Barker said the theatre department has not had much experience in these types of competitions since it only joined ITS a few years ago. 

Barker explained, “Competitive theatre is still a new concept for our school. We have competed in the MSHSAA One Act Play Competition and Readers Theatre in the past, but MSHSAA doesn’t offer any competition for technical theatre. The International Thespian Society, however, offers a wide variety of competition events including technical theatre events.”

Jenkins will continue her competitive journey as she presents her work at the ITS national contest in June.