Theatre’s first production of the year “Gifted” is hitting the stage Wednesday with the cast and crew rehearsing before and after school.

“We’ve been having rehearsals every Friday morning since school started and rehearsals after school,” senior Maddie Slater said. “This week we have practice every day after school for about four to five hours. It is really stressful but I am looking forward to it.”

Theatre director Heather Willingham has high hopes for the production about a man who starts working as a high school teacher for gifted students and starts to reminisce his own high school career.

“We are hoping to compete in the ITS Festival, that is the Texas International Thespian Society,” Willingham said. “We’re hoping to take it all the way to nationals in Nebraska this summer. We’ve never really entered this contest before so I don’t know how that will turn out. We saw a few shows there last year so we feel like we can definitely step up and bring something of that quality.”

Gifted will be performed in the auditorium Wednesday, Friday at 7 p.m. and Saturday at 5:30 p.m. with the original cast and Thursday at 7 p.m. and Saturday at 11:30 a.m. for the understudy shows. Tickets are $5 for students and $10 for adults.