As the University Interscholastic League (UIL) season approaches, the junior varsity theater class is preparing for their One-Act play, The Cover of Life, which will be performed on Feb. 21 at the Panther Creek auditorium.
“I always try to find a play that fits the group of people in the class. For example, we were limited in our choices of plays since we only have two boys in the class,” theater director Kristopher Allen said. “From the plays that fit that list, we felt The Cover of Life would be the best show for this particular group and their talents.”
During the UIL season, everyone is learning something new, and for freshman Zynah Budhwani, learning to fulfill her new technician role is one of them.
“We’re going to learn some stuff with that,” Budhwani said. “So I did get to learn how to use the sound board and sound cues, and how it is just to generally be a technician.”
Along with learning how to fulfill their new roles, the show is teaching other lessons as well.
“The show has taught me about the WWII lifestyle and how people lived their lives completely differently,” freshman Aishah Sayyed said. “ The expectation for women was confined and different compared to the modern-day idea. It’s really refreshing to be aware of the past and how far we have come from then, especially since the show reflects real-life events.”
What the audience sees on stage is the hours of work they put into this show, but the audience may not see the effort they put in behind the scenes.
“They don’t understand how long you have to practice for,” freshman Anshika Yadav said. “For the simplest scenes, like you could have a scene where two people are sitting and talking, that would be two days of work. Not including the outside of school work, where you’re individually working on your character [and] your characterization yourself.”
While preparing for the show, some roadblocks come along, and breaking into character is one of them.
“The most challenging part is how tough it is to settle into our roles,” Yadav said. “Because for some people it’s something they’ve never done before, and that may create a sense of ‘I don’t know what I’m doing’.”
Although there are some challenges while preparing for the show, freshman Isabelle Njoku sees the positive side of it, too.
“[The] most rewarding part about the show is getting closer to everyone,” Njoku said. “[It strengthens] our relationships as friends but also as actors.”
