One act play season arrives

Posted on: Jan 15, 2019

While most students were enjoying a break from class and activities over the holidays, a group of Delano High School actors was hard at work preparing for the one act play season.

A cast of about 20 will perform “Lilies in the Valley” by Gavin Lawrence, a tale of two teenagers on trial for fraternizing outside of their own cultural groups. The story is set in the near future and explores the tensions raised when a small community rapidly diversifies due to an influx of outsiders.

“I like how we can use this as a lesson,” said ninth-grader Maya Rodriguez. “This presents how we do things and how some of those things are wrong. It’s really interesting to me. I don’t normally see plays like this that reflect on a moral. I like that we get to do that.”

A single showing for the public is sandwiched between traveling performances and competition. The free public show will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 24, in the old auditorium at DHS. Students have rehearsed there to more closely match the stage sizes where they will compete.

“It’s right before a home basketball game, so people can come and see it before they go to the game,” said DHS language arts teacher and play director Joe Lawrence. “We just need a small audience to practice on so when we go to the competition and the other acting programs see us, we have that experience. It will be different than what people are used to, unless they’ve been to one acts before.”

Other performances include a festival in New Prague on Saturday, Jan. 19, and subsection competition in Monticello on Saturday, Jan. 26.

A different challenge
Senior Juniper Anderson said that while she generally prefers one acts to conventional school productions, putting one on requires more effort from the actors.

“I think it’s harder because there’s a lot more focus that needs to go into it,” she said. “You are putting on a show for an audience, but these people are theater people and they understand different tactics that are needed in theater.”

Senior Lydia Ramstad performed in her first show last fall, and said she expected that the one act would be simpler than “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare [Abridged]” because of length, if nothing else. Competition rules require that one acts be performed in 35 minutes or less.

“But with a 30-minute production you have to pay attention to details a lot more,” she said. “Everybody is constantly working on what they have to do within those 30 minutes to make the show its absolute best, so I’m actually learning more than I did in the fall play.”

Lawrence agreed that the production is more demanding than a typical comedy.

“One act is concentrated on a smaller group of actors who are able to get into some more advanced acting,” he said. “This show is comedic at points, but it’s a drama, so they get to try new things and learn some more basic and advanced acting skills that we don’t focus on as much when we’re doing a comedy. They have a short amount of time to work in, so they have to develop their characters and act more realistically and effectively to present a drama.”

That intensity also breeds camaraderie, which Delano’s participants have enjoyed so far.

“I think one act is more of a team bonding experience,” said sophomore Sydney Wuerger. “You definitely build stronger relationships because you’re working with these specific people. In the fall play you’re working with twice as many.”

The element of competition against other schools also adds a different flavor to mid-winter productions.

“There is a degree of satisfaction when you get to a competition and you perform well,” said senior Kelli Carroll. “If you get past subsections and into sections, that creates some pride for you and the people you worked with. It brings you all together as a little family.”

The opportunity to see productions by other schools and mingle with their actors is one of the best aspects of one act competition, Lawrence said, adding that scores from the judges are only part of the picture. 

“Our goal is to do as well as we can,” he said. “We want to put on a really good show and do the best work we possibly can do. Whatever anybody who critiques it thinks, as long as we know we did our best, we’re going to be happy.”

Post Categories: High School