Blue Curtain’s One Act Play advances to Bi-District

On Saturday, March 4, the theater students participated in a one-act play competition with seven other schools at the Center for Visual and Performing Arts (CVPA).

This competition took place all day, but the call time for Lamar students was approximately 2:15 p.m. In front of judges, students performed to receive scores in a variety of categories that  ultimately determined their placement at the competition. Theater Coordinator Patrick Holcomb primarily wished to accomplish a good performance to the best of everyone’s ability.

“We had seven minutes to set up our stage, 40 minutes to do our show, and seven minutes to do our strike… and if we go over that at all we get disqualified,” Holcomb said. “So for us, it was the experience of going there and conquering those things. Like doing the seven, 40 and seven minutes… and then doing it successfully. That’s a lot of it.”

Although placing at a decent level was an achievement, it wasn’t  the main focus of the event.

“Advancing was wonderful but that’s not why we did it,” Holcomb said.

Other students, such as Rafael Payne who plays the lead character in the play, did hope to place while also hoping to receive recognition for his and everyone else’s hard work. 

“I wanted our accomplishments to be recognized,” Payne said. “I wanted our hard work to be recognized and to have something to prove for all these hours that I’ve put into the play.”

Junior Daziah Knox played Aunt TP, a strong-willed woman who doesn’t submit to men. When she learned of her team’s advancement, she was completely startled.

“When we first got there, there were like all these schools and it seemed kind of intimidating.  Their sets seemed bigger than ours and all these things,” Knox said. “But toward the end, we all had to pull our part and luckily we did, I’m so happy that we did,” Knox said.

Naturally, this required much preparation, and Knox is no newcomer when it comes to one-act plays.

“I’ve done one act-play before. I did it last year so I kind of already knew what to expect when I went into it,” Knox said. “I think we were very prepared set-wise. We would go over how to strike the set, how to put up the set, back to back with no breaks. We had rehearsals every single day, we were very prepared. It just came down to everyone putting in their part and doing their part.”