Nine students traveled to the state Drama, Debate and Forensics championship in Anchorage Feb. 13-15 for their final competition of the season.
Despite having no pieces go to finals, senior Eli White said the team was “for the most part, pretty happy with our performances.”
The Reader’s Theater piece was a particular heartbreaker, White said. Put on by sophomores Neil Little, Zane Durr and Dylan Grimes, their humorous take on a scene from the Mel Brooks film “Blazing Saddles” barely missed making it to finals.
“We went a few seconds over the time limit and were discounted in the round. That is always disappointing, but at least we were happy with the performance,” White said.
The “Blazing Saddles” piece took 17th out of nearly 40 entries, reported coach Amanda Randles, who took the reins of the team this year after former coaches Gershon Cohen and Tim Shields stepped down.
“Overall, I feel our kids did very well in a large and intensively competitive field,” Randles said.
In the duet acting category, Little and junior Zayla Asquith-Heinz’s piece “Supreme Beings Create the World” missed going to finals by one place, landing them in seventh. In the same category, White and senior Zeke Frank netted 12th with “Picasso at the Lapin Agile.”
Asquith-Heinz also took eighth in dramatic interpretation with her piece “B,” and junior Yael Paes took 24th in the same category for her interpretation of Charlie Chaplin’s speech from “The Great Dictator.”
“Throughout this season, judges have told Yael that her powerful performance makes them want to go change the world,” Randles said.
The team’s trip to Anchorage was not without its ups and downs, she said. After arriving in Tok with a long day driving under their belts, the team’s bus refused to start after the temperature bottomed out at 47 F below zero.
After having the bus towed to a garage, the team borrowed a van from the Tok School to continue their journey. “While it added a little unwelcome excitement to our trip, thankfully all problems happened while in Tok and not on the road, and no one was ever in danger from the extreme cold,” Randles said.
Sophomore Grimes said while the team didn’t necessarily excel this year, he looks forward to next year, which will hopefully draw more participants.
“My favorite part of the season was meeting all the new and interesting people that were participating in DDF and making some very good friends. And although we had a few rough times with our pieces, we would always put our best into making it the act of a lifetime,” he said.