The one Act play cast and crew competed at UIL district contest March 25 at Randall and will advance to the bi-district competition on April 9 at Amarillo College.

Senior Paige Stockton and sophomore Maverick Evans were named part of the All-Star Cast, senior Makenzie Kuykendall and junior Ismael Granda received honorable mentions, and sophomore Gaven Ludington received the award for best lighting.

“Advancing to bi-district is an amazing feeling,” Evans said. “Even now, I’m psyched to think about what we have accomplished. I am basically a first-time actor and to do something and be a part of something so great is astonishing to me. Maybe I’m easily impressed but I don’t care. It’s cool.”

The play, “Paolo and Francesca” by Don Nigro, is about a young girl who is given as a spoil of war to an older unattractive man.

“I play Francesca,” Stockton said. “My father has lost the war and I’m being sold to the guy who did win the war so he can have children. His brother picks me up, and his brother is young. He was nice to me and I thought he was my husband, so I was ecstatic. Then I find out that he’s not the man I’m going to marry, and this 40 or 50-year-old man is my husband. I fall in love with his brother and we start this relationship. I finally get pregnant with his baby, so I have to sleep with my husband to make him think it’s his baby.”

The cast will host a public performance later in the season and reveal the rest of the story. They will perform next at the bi-district competition, which will feature schools from the Lubbock area along with Randall and Palo Duro High schools.

“I’m really looking forward to seeing the other competition,” Stockton. “You’re fighting against all these others, but there are three who still advance. You’re going for yourself, but you know that two others are going to advance. I’m just looking forward to the variety of shows, and what Lubbock and Dallas have to offer.”