WEST COAST'S LARGEST THEATRE FESTIVAL RETURNS
by Robert Jensen, Festival Advisor
| March 1981 marks the date of the first Fullerton College Theatre Festival. Some 180 students from a handful of high schools and 18 judges participated. |  |
| The Festival was the brainchild of the new team of faculty and staff assembled under the leadership of then Department Chairman Todd Glen. New at Fullerton College were staff members Gary Krinke, Tom Blank, Bob Jensen, and Pat Scribner. |
| Guest artists that year included current full-time staff member Mela Hoyt-Heydon. |
 | Each year festival participants are invited to attend our concurrent Spring Musical production in the Campus Theatre. In the festival's first year, we produced a stunning production of Cabaret, directed by Tom Blank. Also involved in Cabaret were Roger Keller (long time theatre festival judge and actor), Clay Wilcox (Now a television actor), Eve Himmelheber (now theatre professor at CSUF), and Lynda Blais (now Krinke). |
| Throughout the years, the festival has been attended by more than 20,000 students from 150 high schools. |  |
| The size and scale of the festival required creation of special scheduling and scoring computer software, designed by Fullerton College's Co Ho, who remains an integral part of our current festival preperations. |
| Much of the success of recent festivals can be traced to the success of the college student leadership teams, who tirelessly work to recruit and organize a labor force of 200 theatre students. |
| The model for these leadership teams was created by then students Don Mercer and Bronwyn Dodson and is finely tuned each year by the 25 member leadership team, which begins work six months in advance of each festival. |
