OUR 2025-2026 SEASON PERFORMANCES
7TH GRADE ONE-ACT PLAYS
The new middle-schoolers want to know about the usual stuff, if you can call grizzly bear attacks the usual stuff. Also, does anybody understand what the principal is shouting? All will be revealed with plenty of comedy along the way.
October 29, 2025 | West Auditorium | Tickets: $5 for students, $10 for adults, free for RISD staff
6-6:30pm – 1st Period
6:30-7pm – 4th Period Cast 1
7-7:30pm – 4th Period Cast 2
7:30-8pm – 7th Period Cast 1
7:30-8pm – 7th Period Cast 1
8-8:30pm – 7th Period Cast 2
8TH GRADE ONE-ACT PLAY
A one-act comedic drama that unfolds five different stories in the same place — a dock extending out to a small lake. While every character has varying reasons for their visits, it’s through humor and tragedy that they all discover the true meaning of Our Place.
November 11, 2025, 6 PM | West Auditorium
Tickets: $5 for students, $10 for adults, free for RISD staff
8TH GRADE ONE-ACT PLAY 2
A casting director has one day to find the leads for a community theater production of Romeo and Juliet. But what seems like a simple task proves impossible when the pool of actors includes extreme performers who just don't know what to do. This hilarious comedy will bring you to the last place you'd ever want to be...behind the doors of a casting session.
November 11, 2025, 7 PM | West Auditorium
Tickets: $5 for students, $10 for adults, free for RISD staff
8TH GRADE ONE-ACT MUSICAL
Be careful what you wish for in this wild, fairy-tale adaptation of the groundbreaking, Tony award-winning musical. Into the Woods JR. features all of your favorite characters — Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack (and his beanstalk), and the Witch — in this lyrically-rich retelling of the classic Brothers Grimm fables.
NOVEMBER 12, 2025, 6 PM | WEST AUDITORIUM
Tickets: $5 for students, $10 for adults, free for RISD staff
UIL COMPETITION PLAY
A small town photographer gives us a peek into her neighbors’ lives to catch glimpses of romance in all its stages. A play about love, nostalgia, the seasons, and how we learn to say goodbye.
FEBRUARY 12, 2026, 6 PM | West Auditorium
Tickets not yet available for this performance.
SPRING MUSICAL
Lydia Deetz is an unusual teenager, obsessed with the whole “being dead thing.” Lucky for Lydia, she moves to a new house haunted by a recently deceased couple and a demon named, Beetlejuice. But when Lydia calls on Beetlejuice for help, the double-crossing specter unleashes a (nether)world of pandemonium.
Thursday, April 16, 7:00 PM, Cast 1
Friday, April 17, 7:00 PM, Cast 2
Saturday, April 18, 7 PM, Cast 1
Sunday, April 19, 2:00 PM, Cast 2
Tickets not yet available for this performance.
THE THEATER MAGNET PROGRAM
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JACOB HEMSETH, RWJH THEATER MAGNET DIRECTOR
Mr. Hemseth has been the theater magnet teacher at RWJH for four years. He considers it his home away from home, and it brings him great joy to be able to mentor kids in the theater arts.
He has a Bachelor of Music in Musical Theater from Ouachita Baptist University. And in college, he performed in musicals, plays, operas, and in choirs, as well as worked behind the scenes, both in production and direction.
As an actor, a few of his favorite performances include Evita and Newsies with Lyric Stage, The View Upstairs, Disaster with Uptown Players, and the originating role of Oliver in Frank-N-Friend at Casa Mañana. As a Director & Choreographer his favorite productions have been Disaster, Heathers, Newsies, Matilda, Tuck Everlasting, and Big Fish.
For questions, email Jacob.
