After school, when students and staff have gone home, Coppell High School Auditorium’s stage is in a blackout. Pink lights flash to define the silhouettes of the CHS varsity theater production class actors. 

The women’s late-Victorian dresses and the men’s frock coats and top hats reflect late 19th century fashion, and white light floods the stage to reveal the set of an 1800s English country mansion on one half of the stage and the set of a garden on the other half. 

The show begins.

The Cowboy Theatre Company is taking Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” to the 2023 UIL One-Act Play competition at 2 p.m. on Thursday for District 6-6A competition  at Lewisville High School. There will also be a public performance on Wednesday at CHS Auditorium for parents and students.

The long list of rules for the One-Act Play competition can be summarized to: the cast and crew have seven minutes to put together the set onstage and have seven minutes after the show to strike the set, leaving nothing on the stage; the show must be between 18-40 minutes long, anything longer or shorter will result in disqualification; each school is allowed to bring a maximum of 24 student including 20 students of cast and crew and four alternates.

Typically, when shows are taken to competition, theater directors decide to perform a drama piece in order to showcase the actors’ ability to portray real human tragedies and get a deep, emotional reaction from the audience and judges. This year, head director Lisa Stucker decided to put together a comedy for the competition.

“I’ve learned that you pick the show that fits the kids the best,” Stucker said. “This show fits these kids the best. When you get a new group of kids, if you pick a show and force the kids to fit the show, it’s never going to be organic enough. But if you see what you have and pick a show they can fit into and you are more likely to get something more genuine like the relationships and the reactions in the story get increased to a whole new level.”

“The Importance of Being Earnest” tells the story of Jack Worthing (senior Tyler Schweitzer) who visits his friend Algernon Moncrieff (senior Jude Taylor) in London. Jack is under the alias, Earnest, to the people in London, including Algeron and Algeron’s cousin, Gwendolyn Fairfax (senior Lauren Beach) whom Jack is in love with. When Algeron discovers Jack’s real identity, he decides to go to the country and pose as Earnest in order for Jack’s ward, Cecily Cardew (senior Sarah Hill) to fall in love with him.

“The play is a literary classic,” Taylor said. “Compared to the other scripts that we’ve done in the past for UIL Theater, it is on a much higher level, just based on the wording it uses. It is a traditional comedy and one of the most classic comedies of all time. Every line is basically a joke which is so fun to mess around with in the script.”

Behind the scenes, stage manager and Coppell senior Grace Hennessy is over the headset communicating to creative and technical departments and giving cues to the light crews, run crews and sound crews. When setting and striking the set, Hennessy stands on the apron of the stage giving time calls to avoid disqualification. During rehearsals, Hennessy is taking notes on the blocking and following along on the script.

“It is a little daunting,” Hennessy said. “It is just a lot of work and we have had a few issues but you just have to take breaks. I think a lot of the time people do not take breaks so all the things they have to do feel like so even more because they are trying to rush everything. So I have been managing my time in order to not get too stressed.”

On Feb. 11, Stucker was injured and had to miss two weeks of work with a broken ankle. With Stucker unable to attend rehearsals, Hennessy, alongside technical theater directorGrace Hellyer, is running the in-class rehearsals.

“I have been calling the show the past few rehearsals with Ms. Stucker out,” Hennessy said. “I have been working the cues in the booth. It’s been really fun and I’m really excited.”

The company spent the school year getting to know their new theater director and have grown a connection with her. Their growing connection with Stucker has given them the ability to communicate with her and understand her views and notes. Stucker uses her own teaching methods from years of directing to guide the actors to success in their competition. By going in depth of their characters and creating backstories, the actors create more authentic stories and make the character feel real.

“We’ve been more on schedule this year with [Stucker],” Taylor said. “We had a full show blocked a couple weeks ago. Last year our show came together a lot closer to the competition date. So, I feel a lot more comfortable with this year’s UIL experience because we have been a lot more prepared.”

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