Theatre director Rebecca Crabtree’s first year at Azle started off strong by directing a rendition of “Alice In Wonderland,” which was performed Dec 1-3. It was a huge hit in the community and also helped grow support for the fine arts program. The end of “Alice” started up a new chapter. This year’s One Act Play performance is titled “A Yellow Boat” by David Saar. Their most recent clinic was Feb. 10 in Decatur, their next clinic is today in Aledo and the district meet will be March 23, also in Aledo.
“I picked ‘Yellow Boat’ as our show this year because I thought it left a lot of room for interpretation,” Crabtree said. “However, it also came along with a lot of background knowledge and source material that would be helpful for the students to learn about and grasp onto, but not limit the show creatively.”
UIL One Act play is a performance of a short play with only one act that is shown at three competitions: district, bi-district, area, region, and state, where they perform their play for judges in competition with other schools. The judges base their scores on crowd effectiveness, and productivity of crew and cast, as well as set, hair, and makeup changes.
While school-performed plays like “Alice in Wonderland” can have a larger cast and crew with an ensemble, live band/orchestra, and adult help, One Act is all up to the student’s ability to run the show with a very condensed cast and crew. Cast member sophomore TJ Bradford broke down why he thinks having that smaller cast is better.
“I think having a limited crew benefits the performance because it makes everything feel more united,” Bradford said. “It’s easier to communicate with everyone as a whole on how you want the production to run.”
This year’s show holds 20 company members, who practice four days a week and any time they can spare in their Theatre classes. Sophomore Morgan Hawkins, a student in the Theatre Production class, explained everyone in theatre helps put this production together.
“We have (theatre) production in 8th period so we help as much as possible to get prepared for rehearsals,” Hawkins said. “Even though I’m not a part of the crew, I still get to help paint props, clean set areas, put the grey set, [a collection of simple gray cubes used to build a basic set], together, and even help some of the cast practice lines. I love that we can help in so many ways.”
Senior Benjamin Derting, who plays the lead character, Ben, a young boy with AIDS, has been a part of the one-act performances his entire high school career. He discussed how this year has been different from the past and what he expects out of this performance.
“This year feels much more serious than previous years,” Derting said. “This is my first drama production and this is the first time anyone in the show has done a clinic, a practice competition. I really feel like we have a chance to advance this year.”
