The curtains open in the darkness. The first thing the audience sees is Electra (Gabriella Velazquez) and her father, Agamemnon (Eliel Muniz), dancing together under a single spotlight before a deep red light lit up the stage. The lights cut darkness with a terrifying yowl as Electra wakes from her sleep.
The theater department performed Electra, for the UIL One-Act Play competition. The cast won acting and technical awards*** and advanced to bi-district. Electra (sometimes written Elektra) is originally a Greek tragedy written by Sophocles. While the original writing spans a much longer period of time and a more complex story, theater directors, Mr. Dean Whitus and Mrs. Mahalia Dinglasan, were able to edit and rewrite the script to make it fit the One-Act-Play structure.
“I kid you not, we had four scripts,” junior Jamerion Estrada-Wilkerson (Orestes) said. “It was all over the place for a good minute.”
Script changes weren’t the only issue the cast had to deal with.
“At the competition, you only have seven minutes to set up and seven minutes to strike,” senior Serina Gonzalez (Stage manager for Electra) said. “And the actual play itself needs to be under 40 minutes because if you go over it’s a DQ and you get disqualified from the competition.”
On top of the time restraint, the difficulty of performing the Greek tragedy proved challenging at first for the actors.
“This play was particularly hard for me,” senior Gabriella Velazquez (Electra) said. “The entire time I was on stage my body was shaking and full of energy. She [Electra] was full of rage and vengeance. It was weighing me down.”
All of the actors had to audition with monologues and prove that they could pull off the emotion necessary for the role. Still, some of the actors still got critiques about their performances.
“In our first round, we got notes from a judge that was pretty much like ‘hey all the male characters look really bad and all the girl characters are great’,” Estrada-Wilkerson said. “I was honestly devastated, but with those notes that he gave me, it was a lot better than it was before.”
Despite all their efforts, the cast made it to bi-districts but was not able to advance to the area.
“We went out there and we gave it our all,” Gonzalez said. “I think it was probably one of our best performances ever. Unfortunately, the judges didn’t agree.”
***Awards won at Zone (Johnson High School):
Outstanding Technicians: Serina Gonzalez & Logan Zimmerman
Best Performer: Gabriella Velazquez
All-Star Cast: Reagan Whitenack
Honorable Mention: Sabrina Suarez, Rachel Moore, Kate Crowley, Laney Schwartz, Charis Tate, Valeria Tuesta, Arwen Loxom, Teagan Leader, Carmen Mihleder
Awards won at District (Madison High School):
Outstanding Technicians: Jonathan Thompson & Xander Robinson
Best Performer: Gabriella Velazquez
All-Star Cast: Sabrina Suarez
Honorable Mention: Jamerion Estrada-Wilkerson
Awards won at Bi-District (East Central High School):
Honorable Crew
Outstanding Technician: Logan Zimmerman
All Star Cast: Gabriella Velazquez
Honorable Mention All-Star Cast: Jamerion Estrada Wilkerson & Reagan Whitenack
Electra Cast & Crew:
Sofia Crowe
Kate Crowley
Elijah Del Toro
Jamerion Estrada-Wilkerson
Serina Gonzalez
Teagan Leader
Alyssa Lewis
Arwen Loxom
Victoria Medrano
Carmen Mihleder
Rachel Moore
Eliel Muniz
Riley Patterson
Xander Robinson
Laney Schwartz
Jocelynn Shay
Sabrina Suarez
Charis Tate
Jonathan Thompson
Valeria Tuesta
Gabriella Velazquez
Parker Veltman
Reagan Whitenack
Logan Zimmerman