Picnic takes first

OAP gets first place at district

Austin Graham

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The+cast+right+before+their+performance+at+the+competition.+The+cast+is+made+up+of+8+juniors+and+3+seniors.

Hunter Jones

The cast right before their performance at the competition. The cast is made up of 8 juniors and 3 seniors.

The one act play, went up against seven other schools for the district competition last week. Picnic won first place at district with many of the students winning awards. Juniors Cullan Payne and Evan Hays received the Honorable Mention award. Juniors Sarah Hayes, Ana Arthur and senior Olivia Baker received the All-Star Cast award and senior Tristen Banuelos won the best crew award for his specials.

“Taking on the role of Hal was a little intimidating at first because I’m a junior,” Payne said. “I feel like it’s a good opportunity for me. I expect that this show is going to do well and I hope that we go far with it. I think this show has a lot of potential and has the ability to go to State, we just have to work hard.”

For the competitions, there are three judges who sit in the audience watching show after show until all schools have performed. They write critiques of each show and rank them from 1-8 while watching them. After the shows, they meet up and give out awards such as best crew, all-star cast and best actor/actress and then the top three shows.

Major’s got that on lock.

— Chuck Harris

“I’m always super excited when we win District,” tech director Chuck Harris said. “It’s a good thing to advance and to get another shot at it. I expect us to do well at Bi-District. You never really know with the judge’s preference, they might be lunatics, we don’t know. I expect us to do a good performance and I just think tightening up the characters, tightening up their ideas[will help improve]. Major’s got that on lock.”

The other advancing schools were Vista Ridge with Theophilus North and East View with Duck Hunter Shoots Angel. The next competition will be Bi-District on Saturday, April 2.

“I’m really excited that we got first place overall in our last competition,” Payne said. “Hopefully we can do it again. I feel like it’s a good standpoint and base for the rest of the competitions to come.”