Next week, Austin ISD Performing Arts Center will begin hosting the UIL One-Act Play State Meet for public high school theater departments who earned a shot at the championship title. This year 12 West Texas schools have advanced to the state contest and three schools, including Wylie, placed third at their region contests as alternates to state.
Thousands of high schoolers started One-Act Play season with dreams of reaching the next contest, all the way to the state competition. Now it’s down to eight schools for each of the six divisions. All of them have gotten their timing down to the strict 40-minute limit. And over the last two months worth of performances they’ve made adjustments to their movement or the way they deliver the lines, as well as to lighting and even hairstyles. And with less than a week to go, they’re still working to make their shows the best they can be.
Out of the large group of advancing schools, each one is experiencing different milestones. Some of the high school theatre troupes are seasoned state competitors and for others, this is a historic first for their community. This is the first time in 40+ years since Clyde’s One-Act Play has advanced to state.
Decked out in turn of the century costumes Clyde’s team tackles the challenge of English accents as they tell the story of the fight for women’s right to graduate from Cambridge in Blue Stockings, by playwright Jessica Swale.
Kara Barbee has been teaching theatre for 20 years and has been directing at Clyde High School since 2013. Until now the furthest Clyde got was as an alternate to the state championship. That was In 2023.
Now with limited rehearsals remaining, Barbee says the goal is to polish the show and stay fresh as a company since they have been working on the show for so long, “We started, oh my gosh, auditions in December and it’s May, and you know that’s a long time for highschool kids to be working on the same show.”
Barbee says hearing their name called at the region contest was a surprise— especially since some of the other schools at that contest had won more acting awards than Clyde. Barbee says that being able to celebrate with her daughter, a freshman at Clyde, who is in the show, is the best blessing of the whole experience. Clyde High School will perform on May 13th at the Austin ISD Performing Arts Center, taking the stage third in the 6:30pm session.
This will be Early High School’s second trip to the finals in the past three years. Early took home the title of State Champions in 2024, placing first with their unique, minimalistic staging of scenes from the play Silent Sky by Lauren Gunderson.
This year Early returns with a similarly simple approach, that relies on the actors and the ensemble to shine, and includes a few basic set pieces and props to tell the story of women pilots from the WASP program who tried to join the Space Program in the show They Promised Her the Moon by playwright Laurel Ollstein.
Spanning from the first competition at zone all the way to the most recent region competition, Early has placed first at each contest. The lead actress, senior Emma Blanton, has earned the Best Performer award at each of the five levels so far.
Considering their most recent success-and their victorious appearance at state in 2024, director Caity Tidwell is grateful and hopeful, but isn’t taking anything for granted..
Tidwell recalls a quote from Travis Poe, renowned high school director and clinician, from the documentary One Act Play (2018) which she has shown her students. “Making it to state is like the best cupcake you’ve ever had, the cake itself is going to state, the icing on the cake is like placing in the top three, the strawberry or cherry on top is winning. Okay well if you don’t get the strawberry or cherry, and you don’t get the icing, it’s still the best cake you’ve ever tasted, and so that’s the philosophy the kids and I have adopted this time going into it.”
Early High School will perform first next Wednesday at the state competition.
One West Texas theater program that knows the route to Austin quite well is Christoval High School. Next week Travis Morgansteen Harris along with co-directors Abbie Willams and Christy Cotton, will take their Division 2-A theater group to the State Contest for the 10th time in the past 25 years.
Harris has been at Christoval High School since 2012 and attributes the success to the theatre program that was already established at the school by former director Tamra Kelley. His mission as a theatre teacher is to push his students to the next level of performance and excellence to help them conquer whatever opportunities or challenges face them later in life, “I really don’t think about ‘Guys we have to go back to state this year!’ Yeah that’s great, but my ultimate goal is for the kids to feel like they gave their all…and that's what it's all about. So I guess that’s my motivation, it's just the kids.”
Christoval will be performing Harris’ own adaptation of the novel by Michelle Magorian, Goodnight Mister Tom, on May 12th at 6:30pm.
Other West Texas schools preparing for their moment in the Austin stage lights include 1-A schools- Lazbuddie, Ackerly Sands, Rankin and Roscoe-Highland
Sudan will compete for the 2-A title. Canyon and Randall are part of the 4-A championship. And at the 5-A level Amarillo and Tascosa made the final cut.
Shows start Monday with Division 1-A and end Wednesday with 3-A. Then Districts 4 to 6-A compete the following week.