The Holly Children’s Theatre Competition Troupe is performing at the National Performing Arts Festival at Walt Disney World on January 18-20. The festival features some of the nation’s top high school and middle school acting troupes performing selections for a panel of professional adjudicators. A special awards ceremony will follow the performances and the highest scoring troupe will perform live on the Galaxy Stage at Magic Kingdom®.

A solo and duet competition will be held following the group performances and the top soloist and duet team will showcase their talents at Magic Kingdom. In addition to the performance competitions, each theater troupe will attend a private, interactive feedback clinic and the student actors will participate in educational seminars on topics such as audition techniques, stage movement, and vocal training.

The Holly Children’s Theatre is under the direction of Nathan Gerrels. This is the first competition by the 12-18 year old troupe.

However, at the 2007 Junior Theatre Festival in Atlanta the 6-12 year old troupe won one of the top six spots as Outstanding Overall Performance for "Disney’s The Jungle Book Kids". During this festival they will be presenting "Schoolhouse Rock LIVE!, Jr." Based on the Emmy Award winning cartoon series, the show tells the story of Tom, a school teacher nervous about his first day of teaching, who tries to relax by watching TV. Suddenly, the Schoolhouse Rock bunch appear in his recreation room and proceed to show him how to win his students over with imagination and music, that cover a variety of subjects: math, science, history and grammar.

Travel Adventures of Lapeer, Michigan is the exclusive travel provider and event organizer for the National Performing Arts Festival.