Canadian National School Theatrical Arts Recognition
STAR Festival
CANADIAN NATIONAL STAR FESTIVAL – WEST
in Metro Vancouver British Columbia at Douglas College on April 24th to 26th 2025.
National STAR Fest - West
April 24th to 26th 2025
Douglas College New Westminster BC
Festival Performance Opportunities
- Adjudicated Mainstage One-Act Play Performances with full tech – no qualification necessary, See STAR Fest Program Handbook for event rules and assessment rubrics.
- Adjudicated Mainstage Short Play & One-Act Play Performances with minimal tech – no qualification necessary, See STAR Fest Program Handbook for event rules and assessment rubrics.
- Qualified Regional STAR Fest Performances are invited to perform for national awards – from any of the 27 regional festivals across Canada or the online qualification event.
- Wildcard STAR Fest Performances – up to three STAR performances can be registered directly in the nationals without regional qualification
Plus, the following programs:
- Tech Olympics Challenge – This is a non-competitive version where schools can bring student delegates to work collaboratively with students from other schools. Two sessions will be for Beginners who have never done Tech Olympics before and two sessions will be Advanced students that have participated in Tech Olympics in the past and feel up for a more advanced set of tech challenges. No experience is required for students to participate and learn about tech theatre at the beginner level. Sign up for this when you register.
- Student Workshops – You will register for the event using the registration guide. Specific programs happening during workshop times are pre-registration however general workshops will be drop-in instead of pre-registered. Participation in workshops will be mandatory for all students if they are not committed to something else during the workshop slot.
- Teacher Professional Development Opportunities – Teachers should register for the event and can use their professional development funding to cover teacher pro-d registration costs. There are some workshops exclusively offered for teachers and teachers are welcome and encouraged to participate in any workshops offered at the greater event as professional development.
- Guild Student Leadership Selection – Student leadership training and selection will take place during the festival. The incoming GSL’s will be introduced at closing ceremonies.
- Scholarship Auditions (Grade 11 & 12 students) – We have scholarships offered by the TAEA and some of North America’s finest theatre and film programs at our festival we awarded over 175k in post secondary scholarships at our national festivals. These scholarships are awarded after scholarship auditions and are announced at closing ceremonies.
- Opening Ceremonies Advanced STAR Performance Auditions – performances that scored advanced at a Regional STAR Festival are invited to audition the day before opening ceremonies to win the honour of performing at opening ceremonies.
- Honour Troupe Program Awards – Schools can apply to win a GOLD, SILVER OR BRONZE banner at Nationals. Once a school has applied they will be provided with a time slot and instructions for a student led presentation that will be judged and hopefully award. Here is the school assessment form to complete and bring with your students to the interview. HONOUR TROUPE ASSESSMENT FORM
- All Canada Musical Theatre Performance and Devised Theatre Performance – Each school can register up to 2 students in the Devised Theatre Intensive and 2 students in the Musical Theatre Intensive. Students in these intensives will focus all four of their workshops on this area with their intensive leader. Then they will work on and produce an Canadian Select Musical Number and Devised Theatre Number for closing ceremonies. Your students can be registered for these programs through our main registration system.
Festival Registration Cost:
$60.00 for Inducted STAR Guild students and $75.00 for non-inducted students. The festival registration includes a T-shirt and swag bag for all festival delegates.
If you want to learn how to start a troupe and induct your most dedicated drama students from your school message: [email protected]
Plus:
$225 cost per Mainstage One-Act Play (max one per school) No Qualification Needed. Cost of one-act covers professional technicians needed on-site.
$50 cost per Studio (Minimal Tech) One-Act Play or Short Play Entered – No Qualification Needed
$8 per STAR Individual Event Entered. Pieces that qualified with an Advanced or Proficient Ribbon from a regional event or WILDCARD performances (Max 3 wildcard performances per school that did not qualify)
Honour Troupe Application costs: $50.00
Teacher Pro-D Enrolment: $40.00
First Time Discount…
— We would like to see more schools enjoy our National STAR Festival. So, for schools that have never attended the Canadian National STAR Festival before we will let you BRING YOUR FIRST FOUR STUDENTS TO EXPERIENCE THE FESTIVAL FOR FREE! This is a savings of between $240 to $300.