Houston prepares for annual event; school’s ‘Tournament of Plays’ slated for Dec. 12-13

HOUSTON — A peak inside the Houston High music room reveals a class full of students hustling and bustling about, reciting and remembering papers, creating props, and feverishly finding just the right costume. These students are the thespians of Houston’s drama classes, perfecting the final touches for their Tournament of Plays performance.

The Tournament of Plays, where students create and perform their own pieces, is in its second year at Houston High School. Drama teacher Shane Artz brought the Tournament of Plays into the drama department last year during his first year of teaching.

“My background is not in theater so when I first got the job at Houston I immediately contacted other drama teachers in the area as well as researched what other drama classes are doing,” Artz said. “I ran across multiple schools doing projects similar to our Tournament of Plays.”

According to Artz, students are responsible for almost every creative aspect of their performances, including writing the script, creating props, and their costumes.

“I believe that when students have a hand in creating anything they are more invested than when things are handed to them,” Artz said. “If I had picked groups and given scripts, students would not have taken the creative license they have with this project.”

“Most of the influential learning experiences in my education have not come from a traditional classroom but rather figuring out how to do things I am interested in with friends; I am hoping to bring a little of that informal learning to this project,” Artz said.

For this year’s Tournament of Plays, there will be nine different plays performed by two different classes. These plays include “The Secret Origin of Mojo Man,” “Blood On The Deck,” “Red Riding Helm,” “Bit of a Gossip,” and “1/2.”

“‘Blood on the Deck’ is a murder-mystery drama about a cruise ship vacation gone awry,” group member Quinn Cummings, a junior, said.

“Red Riding Helm” is a comedic version of Little Red Riding Hood, senior Jonah Hollie said. “I like the fact we actually wrote it and got to put our own input in it.”

With the fun of writing, though, some difficulties do arise, he said.

“Everyone being here at the same time is a difficulty, and we’ve had to revise the script three times,” Hollie said.

This is not the only difficulty students have faced. “Blood on the Deck” actress Nicole Forto, a sophomore, said she also has faced challenges keeping her group on task.

“One difficulty is working with some of the other students,” Forto said. “Some of them don’t stay focused and push the production to be behind.”

Fellow thespian Danielle Andrew sympathizes with Forto’s struggle.

“I think one of the most difficult things about doing this project independently is getting everyone to stay on task and be prepared by the time the performance date is here,” she said. “This is my second year doing the Tournament of Plays and sometimes it is difficult to get everyone focused, but if you can, the production is usually well done.”

Aside from the difficulties students have faced, there are many learning lessons incorporated into creating a play.

Freshman Ashton Hiler said he is slowly learning to not turn his back to the audience and to project his voice, while Cummings has learned it takes time and effort to become believable while on stage.

“In becoming believable on stage this causes the crowd to become interested by the performance; this is the goal of all actors,” Cummings said. “My favorite part of creating this play though was the creation of the script because that’s when you can truly develop the character you wish to display on stage for your audience.”

Andrew said the experience of working together to write a play and perform it on stage was very satisfying.

“It proves that we as students can do things independently,” she said.

As for future Tournament of Plays events, Artz said he has big plans.

“In the future I would like to base this project on play writing, possibly with other English classes, and have students produce original works every year,” he said. “This year I had two groups that knew they wanted to write their own plays right away. It’s exciting to me that students are willing to invest their energy into a project like that.”

Students will perform their plays for select classes from Houston High School Dec. 12. The classes invited then vote on their favorite plays that will compete the following day, at 7 p.m., Dec. 13, for the public at HHS .

Holly Brett is a three-year journalism student and this is her second year writing for the Frontiersman’s School Page.