TTAO Winter Newsletter

January 30, 2023

Message from TTAO President, Craig Hertel

ADJUDICATORS

This year, for OAP Contest, some companies may be performing a continuous, uninterrupted segment of a full-length play. In fact, UIL has added a checkbox to the normal two choices (“one-act” and “scenes from”) for those groups. Therefore, we adjudicators should be ready to evaluate and critique those plays right alongside the others.

In ranking the plays, we regularly have to evaluate comic vs dramatic or classic vs contemporary. We sometimes evaluate plays that had to shut down early vs those who got to the end. In recent years, we’ve had to compare masked companies to those without. We’ve done all this without missing a beat, so I’m confident we will continue to provide top-notch adjudication this coming year, as well.

CONTEST MANAGERS

Both TTAO and UIL have gotten questions from Contest Managers about what special things they might need to do this year about checking rights from publishers. Actually, the Contest Manager’s duty on this has not changed. According to the Guide for Contest Managers, the director must provide:

• Written permission from the publisher or author (unless the play is in the Public Domain) and

• Written evidence from the publisher or school administration that royalty for each performance has been paid.

The changes this year involve the agreement between publishers and schools/administrations. This should not greatly affect what we do when we check for rights and royalty payments.

We appreciate the great job you do in running OAP Contests.

Thanks, and have a great contest season,

Craig Hertel

TTAO President

Contest Manager Certification Training

The next Contest Manager Certification Training will be March 31, 2023 in Lubbock, TX at Texas Tech University.

Election Resuls

Board President Elect

Scott Allen

At-Large Board Member

Freddie Buckner

Standards and Practices Committee: Region 3 Contest Manager

Jill Henson

Standards and Practices Committee: Region 3 Adjudicator

Norma Thomas

Standards and Practices Committee: Region 1 At-Large

Scott TIpton

Standards and Practices Committee: Region 2 At-Large

Yadira Gonzalez

Standards and Practices Committee: Region 4 At-Large

Melissa Utley

Core Values Committee: Region 1

Gary Davis

Core values committee: Region 3

Henrietta Haynes

C. Lee Turner Real Change Award – Start Your Recurring Donation Today

TTAO’s C. Lee Turner Real Change Award is making real change in our public schools. TTAO has sent troupes to the Thespian Conference, paid for Clinics, UIL OAP sets, and Special Guest Artists, and TxETA Convention. This is all possible through the donations of our membership. With HS OAP contests ramping up, there’s plenty of time to join and make real change in our schools. If every member donated just $5.00 a month, we would have $21,000/year for these worthwhile requests. One-time donations are also accepted, but it’s easy with only a $5.00/month contribution via a PayPal deduction.

The link to donate is here. For those of you already contributing, we thank you. So, sign up today and make real change happen.

Swag Shop is Always Open

Do You Know the TTAO MOO ? (Manual of Operations)

Get to know the Area, Region, State Recommendation Committee:

The Area, Region, State Recommendation Committee is comprised of the State Meet adjudicators from a current year who review Adjudicator Evaluations, make recommendations to the U.I.L. State Theatre Director for adjudicator assignment considerations at upper-level contests for the upcoming year, and make recommendations to the TTAO Board of Directors for newly qualified members to receive area, region, and state judging designations.

1. Membership a. Adjudicators shall be automatically appointed to the recommendation committee after serving as a state adjudicator in the previous contest season should they choose to participate in the committee.

b. The committee will be chaired by the Past-President of TTAO, who will serve as a non-voting manager of the process.

2. Responsibilities a. Members will read Adjudicator Evaluations from the previous contest year with a professional understanding of confidentiality of these records.

b. Committee members will report any accusation of ethics violations found in the evaluations to the President-Elect of TTAO to share with the Executive Committee.

c. The committee will nominate new area/region/state adjudicators who are eligible according to TTAO’s criteria and following the process laid out in Article XI of this Manual of Operations.

d. The committee will produce a list of ranked area/region/state adjudicators with vote totals to be delivered directly to the state U.I.L. Theatre Director.

e. The committee shall meet once either in-person or virtually before balloting. The Past-President will schedule and lead the meeting. The meeting will be used to go over process, review Core Values, reinforce the importance of confidentiality as an ethical requirement, arrange for distribution of evaluations and ballots, and elect a Tabulation Manager.

f. The committee will only be granted access to Adjudicator Evaluations and ballots for a limited window of time as designated by the Past-President

g.The Past-President and Tabulation Manager shall meet to tabulate the ballots in person or virtually. h. All of the committee’s work must be completed before the annual summer TTAO board meeting.