With “Prince Caspian” over and the end of the year coming quickly, the theater production group isn’t slowing down but only getting ready for another competition.

Since January, the Hillcrest theater team has been practicing to get ready for the regional theater competition. These competitions include 25 different pieces, like one-act plays, pantomimes, and different themes and scenes for students to try and move from regionals to state championships. 

“Our goal is to qualify all our pieces [for state], but that’s really rare to do that,” said Joshua Long, the Hillcrest theater teacher. 

Approximately 80 Hillcrest students have been training and working since January with their scenes and acts.

 “We let them set their own rehearsal schedule,” said Long. “Some come before. Some come during APP; some do it after school.”

Hillcrest high school boasts the most extensive theater team in the state. They have more than sufficient actors, but they have enough to have student coaches that help the other students in their scenes do better.

An example of one of these pieces competing at regionals is the one-act play. Students will perform a play as one-act, which means no pauses and no intermissions between the play. For example, the Hillcrest theater 4 group, or advanced theater, will be performing “A Doll’s House Part 2” by Lucas Hnath. The play starts 15 years after “A Doll’s House” happened, where a woman walks out of her unhealthy marriage to live her own life. However, in “A Doll’s House Part 2,” the woman comes back to the house and family she left, realizing that her husband never filed for divorce, and she tries to get him to divorce her.

For a piece to be submitted to the state competition, the pieces are judged according to how well the students act. Enough points will be awarded if the students do well, and if the students get enough points, they will be allowed into the state competition that will take place in April. 

The shorter pieces performed at the region competition on March 29 at Stansbury High School, and the one-act performed on March 30 at Cottonwood High School.