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After years of getting second place, NS’s Drama department took first place in their region competition, which took place at NS on Mar. 19-20. They went on to take third at state this past weekend.
“We worked really hard, we have a lot of really talented kids that participated, and I think we totally earned it. It was a really great feeling to win [region],” said senior Adam Cox.
In the region competition, Harrison Cook won Best Actor and Kaje Nielsen got Best Supporting Actor in a one-act play. The one-act play, “The Game” by Dennis E. Noble, took first place in both region and state. That group of Cook, Neilsen, Rory Anderson, and Ben Anderson also earned top honors at best ensemble, which is awarded to the top group in any category.
“Everyone feels amazing about that,” Cook said. “There’s been this sort of ‘curse’ where [the one act does] well at region, but not very well at state.”
Cook also took first at both region and state with his dramatic monologue from the play “Twelve Angry Men.” The drama department also swept in classical scenes at state: Kylee Davis and Rory Andersen took first, Kaje Nielsen and Adam Cox took second, and Shayley Fausett and Evan Barsic took third.
At the region competition, Maren Bench and Shaylee Wilkey got second place for Contemporary Scenes, and Emily Wheeler took second in Humorous Monologue.
NS’s main competition at region is Manti. Year after year, Manti has beaten them and gotten first at region. This year however, NS was able to outperform Manti and take the lead. However at state, the tables turned with Manti taking first, Union took second, and NS ended in third place, just one point behind Union.
Though the results are excellent, and every entry from NS received straight superior ratings, the team overall felt a
little disappointed with the result.
“Mildly disappointed,” Cook said. “Everybody got their hopes up that we would get first or second.”
For scoring, each school has a total of 25 entries. Six categories with four entries per category and a one-act play. Each performance is evaluated by a panel of judges.
“So you’re scored out of twenty-five and you’re also ranked in your round out of all the people you compete against,” said drama teacher and director Alex Barlow. “As far as sweepstakes sores go, they take all the scores out of twenty-five for each piece and then add them all together.”
At region, NS came out on top in sweepstakes after they combined the scores. It also helped that they placed in the top three of each category other than pantomime. Each of the actors and actresses that participated worked hard and performed to the best of their ability in order to win.
“I think people were excited, but they were also a little overwhelmed. But they handled it well,” said Barlow.
Putting in the hard work was extremely important then year, especially since region was more stressful than usual. Not only did they have to pre- pare to perform, but they had to be ready to host as well.
“It was really stressful. It’s not something I want to do again for a while,” said Barlow. “It was kinda crazy to
make sure you have all the judges and all the rounds set up. It was intense but we made it through.”
The musical added to the stress and workload of both the director and the students. Normally the musical is sooner in the year but, due to Covid, it was around the time of region. It was hard to be able to balance it all.
“Right now is like the craziest time imaginable. I went straight from the end of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ to region,” Cox said. “You just have to choose, you have to prioritize at any given moment. You always have to be working on something. You can’t take days off.”
Despite the stress and all the chaos, the drama department was able to pull it off.
“My goals for us are to just do the very best that we can do,” said Barlow. “It can be very subjective so you never know. I am hopeful that we will do our best and whatever happens happens.”
