This Friday (March 25), the best of the best in District 265A will compete for the State Championship for UIL Theatre.
“Madison, Reagan and Mac will all go on stage this Friday starting at 5PM. So far, [the company] has put in so much effort to make this performance great. The Staff has worked about 30 hours from Thursday through Saturday (March 17-19) over Spring Break. It’s whole process, each student improving, everyone understands the stakes, the pressure helps the staff push themselves.” stated Mr. Whitus, Theatre Arts teacher.
However, there is no “best-of-the-best” for UIL Theatre, whichever company wins will be based off of one persons opinion. Reagan coach Gloria Robinson has been devoted for the past 22 years to teaching the art of acting, yet UIL has pushed her and the company harder than ever.
“I’ve been teaching for 22 years now, and over that amount of time, I’ve beeen able to learn and grow as a person and a teacher. It’s a learning process to gain that one needs to know to be anbole to progress ion this field. Personally I feel seasoned and am able to better direct the company and the students to where they need to focus their energy in their peices. The students especially have put in so much effort, I have to say that every on of them are so telented and passionate for that they do. The company and I are able to work together and improve to get where we are, especially after all this time working togetehr we’ve become a family. As a family we’ve pulled together and selected this peice (Flight of the Earls) based off of the talent, but unfortunately a LOT of really talented students get cut out of this peice. This year I’ve judged two UIL competitins for drama, so after understanding the pool, this rich and varied script became perfect to us. We’re always finding more to pick and choose out of the script, I’m so proud of all these kids.”
For every school, UIL is important to gain a better reputation and funding within the district, so every student and school partaking within a UIL event understands how important “winning” is. Kelsey Godfrey, Junior at Reagan, has completely devoted emersed herself within her character.
“Well, the play is great within itself. The setting takes palce during the Irish conflict, along with that there’s a lot of violence and drama internally within families and society. I really enjoy my character, she’s basically the peacekeeper out of all the other characters, everyone else in the play is pretty much violent and aggravated. Yet, aside from the play, the staff and I have put so much effort for the past three weeks to make this performance perfect. I’ve devoted myself to make my character come to life. The major difference between UIL Drama and normal Theatre productions or competitive Interpretation is that UIL is really fierce. The competition is something to be reckoned with, but we’re all really excited to see what’s going to happen.”
In the end, the “best-of-the-best” may advance after March 25 and go on to round 2 starting April 2, which then decides the winner to advance on from District to the State competition later this semester.
