There are few spare moments in Trena Weiss-Null's day. During school hours, she teaches Theatre 1-4, Technical Theatre 1-2, and Speech and Debate at Robert E. Lee High School in Springfield. Next year she will also teach IB Theatre.
After school and late into most nights, Weiss-Null can be found working on Lee Lancer Theatre productions and related theatre activities. Her main stage directing credits this year include "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat," Lee's Spring production, "Playing For Time," an autobiographical account of a women's orchestra at Auschwitz-Birkenau, and "Schoolhouse Rock-Live!," a redux of the Saturday morning cartoon series.
Weiss-Null believes in providing her students with a diverse selection of theater education and production opportunities. In addition to three main stage shows, she regularly sponsors theatre field trips and entries in the Virginia Theatre Association and Virginia High School League one-act play competitions. This year her students have competed and won performance, playwriting and technical awards at the Virginia Theatre Association, the Virginia Thespian Conference, the Northern Virginia Theatre Festival, and regional improvisation, theatre sports, and forensics events. Her team of Cappies Critics won last year's Critics Team and Male Critic awards.
Weiss-Null has a bachelor's degree in acting-directing, master's degrees in theatre and education, over 15 years of high school theatre teaching experience, and a background in college, community and professional theatre. In the four years she has directed and taught at Lee, Lancer Theatre has earned a strong performance reputation with such diverse productions as "Playing for Time," "Grease," "MaKiddo," "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying," "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and "The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940." She is also known for the annual children's shows "Velveteen Rabbit," "Stuart Little," and "Wiley and the Hairy Man." Lancer Theatre has achieved recognition for its technical expertise in sound, lights, set design and special effects.
Weiss-Null serves as a Cappies mentor, forensics coach and judge, and sponsor of Thespian Troupe 362. She is married to Michael Null and has two children: Jake, a freshman at Virginia Tech, and Miki, a student at Lake Braddock Middle School.
<1b>— Scott Southee, president, Lee Drama Boosters, and Kate Collins, Cappies Booster Parent