In the month of January the Wilsonville Theater Department is in the midst of preparing to go to the Oregon Thespians Regional Competition. Regional competitions are held at various high schools all around Oregon and it is one of the biggest events for high school drama departments in Oregon. 

However, this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Regionals is going to look a little different. Like most things, in order to even occur Regionals has to go fully online. This means that instead of in person competition and judging every school will turn in their submission online. In order to do this Regionals will be using the platform OpenWater. 

Since the whole competition is online there are a lot of differences in the competition this year. Firstly, instead of having a one day competition where you compete, get judged, and get rewards, the whole event spans from February 6th to February 23rd. Students and teachers have six days to submit their videos (February 6th and February 12th) and judges have eight days starting on the 14th to judge videos before results are finally posted on the 23rd. 

Not only has the timeline for Regionals changed this year but so have many rules. Regionals has had to adapt and change many rules since videos are being submitted this year. For example one new rule this year is no editing or mixing vocals on musical pieces. With rules adapting so has submissions. Keeping social distancing in mind, Oregon Thespians has taken out the option to submit large group submissions for multiple categories. 

Although this was not the Regionals thespians all around Oregon had planned for, the show must go on.