By Gracie Scarbrough
AHS reporter 

Alva One-Act performs Divinely at state competitions

 

November 4, 2016

Landry Gaddy

Alva High School One-Act presents "The Diviners" to the school on Thursday. Actors from left to right are Kaleigh Henke, Shadi Nettles and Jacob Ervin.

The Alva High School (AHS) one-act team was busy during the week of Oct. 23 – 29. On Thursday the 27th, they performed "The Diviners" for the AHS student body and staff at 11 a.m., and again that night at 7:30 p.m. for the community of Alva, with both showings generating a good audience turn out. Earlier in the week, the team held multiple practices endeavoring to clean up and finalize all aspects of the show, in preparation for the State One-Act competition on Saturday the 29th.

"The Diviners" is a play about a teenage boy whose mother drowned after saving him from an accident when he was young. As a result of being without oxygen for so long, the boy, Buddy Layman, suffers brain damage. Further, Buddy develops a strong fear of water and contracts ringworm from a lack of bathing.

Eventually, a retired preacher, C. C. Showers, comes to town looking for work, and meets Buddy and his father, Ferris Layman. Mr. Layman decides to hire C.C., and C.C. in turn makes it his personal mission to get Buddy to bathe and get rid of the ringworm.

Alva High School English instructor Chris Eckhardt serves as an assistant for the speech team, of which one-act is a part. He stated, "This show, more than any that I've helped with, is probably more acting-heavy. It relies more on the character's emotions, expressions and their interactions with one another than some of the other shows that had a smaller cast. Furthermore, it's a big mixture of all the aspects of one-act. Between acting, technical and set, all the different pieces have to come together in a completely different way."

On Friday, Oct. 28, part of the team packed up the set and headed to Mustang to "spike," or preset the stage. The rest of the actors, dancers and tech members traveled to Mustang after Friday night's football game at Tonkawa. After staying the night in Yukon, the team was re-energized and ready to compete. They were the first of four teams to compete Saturday afternoon, and performed well.

Ultimately, the Alva team earned a fourth-place finish in the state competition. While they technically tied for first place with teams from both Cherokee and Okarche, they received a mandatory penalty for exceeding the time limit, going over the one-minute grace period by 15 seconds.

Other awards also went to the Alva team, as they won the Tech Award, earning 73 out of 75 possible points. Additionally, two Alva team members – Aaron Erickson and Jacob Ervin – were selected to the 10-member All-State / All-Star One-Act Cast.

 

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