OAP advances to area

With the UIL competition for one act play, there are three judges watching the competing shows. After viewing all six or eight shows depending on the competition, they are ranked from one-six/eight. At the bi-district competition, Picnic received all ones from the judges, winning first place.

“Last competition was the pinnacle of our accomplishments thus far in that we received first place scores from all three judges,” junior Evan Hays said. “Aside from that, everytime we perform, the show is further solidified. Area is going to be even greater a challenger because the quality of shows competing is becoming more and more selvet. As long as we focus in, and do what we’ve been doing all along, we’ll be alright.”

The cast received a number of awards. Sophomore Ellie Hawkins received the Outstanding Technical Crew award for her job as stage manager. Junior Sara Hayes received the Honorable Mention All Star Cast award for her role as Millie Owens. Junior Cullan Payne and senior Lynley Eilers received the All Star cast award and junior Ana Arthur won Best Actress.

“First of all, I was shocked,” Arthur said. “I didn’t really expect it. It was a great feeling, it was kind’ve like a ‘hey, you’re doing something right.’ Portraying the role of Madge was difficult for me. So receiving Best Actress for Madge was a confidence boost or like a pat on the back almost.”

The other advancing schools were our neighbor Vista Ridge with Theophilus North and LBJ with The Hands of Its Enemy. The next competition will be Area on Saturday, April 9.

“I feel like our performances stick out because our cast and crew is so connected and we’re such a tight unit that can’t function without one another,” Hawkins said. “Every performance we give it our all and hope for the best. And if we’re not going to win, we’re going to show people art that we work so hard on for many hours.”

Oap advances to region

The one act play group advanced from area to region, which is the competition prior to state. They received two first places and one second place from the judges, one of which stated it was the best performance of Picnic he had ever seen.

“Sometimes, because we’ve been doing it for so long, it’s hard to tell whether it was a good run or not,” Eilers said. “You don’t really know until you hear the results or get a critique or something. Thus far, we’ve only positive like critiques, we’ve had nearly no criticism for our show, which is very awesome, but at the same time as we continue on in the UIL competitions we will meet more and more impressive plays.”

Those winning awards were sophomore Ellena Martinez with the Outstanding Technical crew award for her lights. Arthur received the Honorable Mention award. Senior Olivia Barker received the All-Star Cast award and Payne received the award for Best Actor.

“I felt like it was a very good performance, but I definitely noticed within this performance that there are a lot of things we can definitely improve on,” junior Matthew Kennedy said. “The critiquer told us that if we do not fix these particular things, we’re not going past regions. And it was so beneficial to hear that from him and to hear the things he critiqued us on. That way, next time when we go to that competition we can know what to do so that we can keep going.”

The other advancing schools were once again LBJ with The hands of Its Enemy and Thomas Jefferson with Balkan Women. The regional competition will be on Friday, April 22.

“It’s an amazing feeling seeing all of my students getting to go on stage and be recognized and qualified for regionals,” theatre director Linda Major said. “My expectation is that we’re going to qualify for state. We have individual, as well as ensemble, work to do that we will work on to prepare us for getting to state.”