The Massachusetts Educational Theater Guild (METG), previously known as the Massachusetts High School Drama Guild, is a
theater arts
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...
located in
supporting middle and secondary school students and teachers. METG organizes the statewide high school
theatre festival
Theatre festivals are amongst the earliest types of festival. Classical Greek theatre was associated with religious festivals dedicated to Dionysus, called the City Dionysia. The medieval mystery plays were presented at the major Christian feasts ...
in March.
History
METG began in 1931 with the establishment of “Massachusetts Drama Day.” Four schools participated in the original competition, which was held at the old Huntington Chambers building in
Copley Square
Copley Square , named for painter John Singleton Copley, is a public square in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood, bounded by Boylston Street, Clarendon Street, St. James Avenue, and Dartmouth Street. Prior to 1883 it was known as Art Square due to it ...
in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
. In the 1940s, the Massachusetts Secondary School Administrators Association became the educational sponsor of the state event.
1954 marked the beginning of two important corporate partnerships with the Guild:
The Boston Globe
''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
became the lead patron, and John Hancock Hall became one of the Festival’s sponsors. It was also in this year that the Festival was relocated to John Hancock Hall in the Back Bay Events Center, where it has remained ever since. In 1989 the Guild’s horizons expanded with incorporation as a nonprofit organization. During the 1998-1999 school year, the Massachusetts Middle School Drama Festival, Inc. and the Massachusetts High School Drama Guild, Inc. merged. Since then the Guild has increased its membership to over 160 schools across the Commonwealth. In 2010 the name was changed to Massachusetts Educational Theater Guild.
In 2012, through the generous support of Broadway In Boston, the METG announced a new education project which offers both middle and high school members an opportunity to bring experienced adjudicators into their theaters where they will receive professional feedback on their hard work creating musical theater productions.
References
External links
*
The 2009 State Finals Festival Video
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Festivals in Massachusetts
Theatre companies in Massachusetts
Theatre festivals in the United States