Every year, the actors and actresses of Lampasas High School take part of Texas’ competitive One Act Play. Members of the advanced theatre class tried out to participate and possibly letter in the shortened play. This year, the theatre program has decided on the production, The Still Life with Iris by Steven Dietz.

Drama programs have to adjust their shows to adhere to the strict regulations placed on the competition. The rules are there to keep the playing field level for all schools.

“We have 40 minutes to complete the show…,” Director Greta Peterson said. “If we go over on time then the play is disqualified. There are five levels of competition. We compete against approximately six shows at each level. Three advance until Region…then only two go on to the State level. There are usually three judges and they give us rankings.”

The cast list was recently announced on the LHS Theatre Twitter page. Audition processes are the way that the director decides who will make the official cast.

“People read scenes as the characters that they wanted to play as,” sophomore cast member Cole Wheeler said. “We also had interviews with Ms. Peterson. Ms. Peterson used auditions as well as our past performances when deciding casting.”

In order to secure a flawless performance, the cast sticks to their tried and true method of running rehearsals.

“We divide up the script into Blocks,” Peterson said. “We rehearse each character and make sure the actors are comfortable with what we have decided to do with the scene.  We also have tech students designing the color palettes for lights and set pieces. “

Senior Mackenzie Mclendon said all the long hours rehearsing are worth it.

“I really love the bonding experiences throughout the season,” McLendon said. “Sometimes theatre is hard, and it’s very tiring, but I love it and wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world!”