Tupelo to welcome Mississippi Theatre Association conference next week

The 2023 MTA Festival will kick off on Thursday, Jan. 12, and wrap up Sunday, Jan. 15, at the Tupelo Community Theatre at the Lyric in downtown Tupelo.

The weekend will feature performances from a host of community theater groups, high school drama teams and college students.

Tupelo Community Theatre’s executive director Tom Booth is excited to welcome MTA back to Tupelo for the first time since 2011.

“We've hosted multiple times through the years,” Booth said, adding that it’s always exciting when the statewide organization comes to town.

As part of the conference, TCT will perform their 2022 season opener “Once.” Just two weeks after the MTA conference, the community theater organization will debut “Tea for Three.”

“We are doing the ‘Tea for Three‘ two weeks after MTA is over, and the set is minimal. Only three people are in the cast, so we were able to work around that this year,” Booth said.

As a North Mississippi native, Booth feels that MTA‘s return to Tupelo will provide an artistic and economic boost for a community already steeped in the arts.

“We feel it’s very important to get people back to North Mississippi,” Booth said. “We feel very fortunate to have the facilities to bring them here to Tupelo.”

Eight theater groups from high schools across the state plan to perform on Thursday and Friday nights. Of those groups, two will be selected to continue to the Southeastern Theatre Conference in Kentucky this March.

Friday’s festivities will also include free performances of short plays targeted for K-6 grade audiences.

Saturday’s agenda includes a community theater festival where five theaters from all across the state will compete.

Stacy Howell is MTA’s executive director and a native of Flowood. Like Booth, she said she’s excited to bring the annual conference back to Northeast Mississippi.

“Mississippi Theatre Association had our annual festival last year in Meridian; this year, we're in Tupelo, and we haven't been there since 2011, so we're excited to come back,” she said.

Howell said Thursday night’s events will include auditions for two $500 scholarships for college students.

Although the MTA’s conference is held just once a year, the organization works year-round to organize the event, all while providing meaningful opportunities for Mississippi’s theater community.

“We have about 25 board members across the state, and they represent all levels of theater, from youth to the professional division,“ Howell said. ”Our goal is to provide professional development and networking opportunities and to be a source of advocacy for theater across the state.”

Besides hosting the 2023 conference, this year marks the 110th anniversary of Tupelo’s Lyric Theatre, which was built for live performances in 1913.

After five decades of showing motion pictures, the Lyric returned to hosting live productions in the 1980s.

To commemorate the special anniversary, banners celebrating the Lyric’s birthday have been placed along Broadway Street.