COMING SOON!
7TH GRADE ONE-ACT PLAYS
While some of the new middle-schoolers want to know where the bathroom is and what the deal is with P.E., others are mostly concerned with grizzly bear attacks. And does anybody understand what the principal is shouting about under that weird hair during announcements? All will be revealed with plenty of comedy along the way.
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
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 method actors, performers who just don't know what to do with their hands, and one particular woman who may or may not think she's a cat. 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, come-to-life 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
Welcome to Colchester, a small town where everybody knows each other and the pace of life allows the pursuit of love to take up as much space as it needs. Our tour guide is Suzanne, the town photographer, who lets us peek into her neighbors’ lives to catch glimpses of romance in all its stages of development. A play about love, nostalgia, the seasons and how we learn to say goodbye.
FEBRUARY 12, 2026, 6 PM | West Auditorium
Tickets: $5 for students, $10 for adults, free for RISD staff
Tickets not yet available for this performance.
SPRING MUSICAL
The ghost-with-the-most comes to the stage in the frightfully funny musical based on the beloved motion picture turned Broadway phenomenon. Lydia Deetz is a strange and unusual teenager, still grieving the loss of her mother and obsessed with the whole “being dead thing.” Lucky for Lydia, she and her father move to a new house haunted by a recently deceased couple and a demon named, Beetlejuice. When Lydia calls on Beetlejuice to scare away anyone with a pulse, this double-crossing specter shows his true stripes, unleashing 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.
ABOUT THE MAGNET PROGRAM
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Jacob Hemseth, Theater Director
Mr. Hemseth has been the RWJH Theatre Magnet teacher at Richardson West Junior High 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 grew up in Wylie, Texas and has a Bachelor of Music in Musical Theater from Ouachita Baptist University. In college, he performed in musicals, plays, operas, and choirs, and worked behind the scenes, both in production and direction.
He’s performed in multiple professional productions in and out of the DFW area. His favorites are Evita and Newsies with Lyric Stage, The View Upstairs and 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.
