The clock strikes 3 p.m. Phones light up as texts fly from room to room. The news is out, senior Zaynah Rahman, junior Ainsley Dwyer and sophomore Johan Padayatti are the only students from Coppell High School to earn a perfect score and receive a callback.
From Nov. 15-18, Coppell sent a record number of 79 students to the Texas Thespian Festival in Grapevine at the Gaylord Texan Resort and Convention Center. Students participated in numerous competitions, shows and workshops intended to improve acting and production skills.
The festival is a source of great excitement for the students, months of preparation had been put in to have the hope of advancing to nationals.
“They take criticism and they throw themselves fully into their performances,” sophomore Makayla Arnold said. “Ainsley is very good at portraying dramatic acts and Johan is best at keeping the audience entertained with comedic performances.”
Upon hearing the news, Dwyer and Padayatti were surprised as they were two of 113 students to receive a callback. With thousands of competitors from North Texas, they thought the chance of a callback was not high.
“I was in my friend’s room playing cards when the list came out,” Dwyer said. “I remember the app crashing because of how many people were trying to look at the list. Makayla made a groupchat with me and Johan and told us that we got a mainstage callback. I went crazy, I was so happy and everyone who was with me was so happy. It’s just such a core memory. I called Johan and I could hear through the phone just how shocked and happy he was, then he said ‘wait, we need to practice.”
The entire theater troupe was ecstatic when they heard the news.
“But I don’t think our school has had a mainstage callback in quite a while,” head theater director Lisa Stucker said. “We had Ainsley, Johan and then we also had Zaynah who was there for costume design. Both got mainstage callbacks so it was quite exciting.”
With the list coming out at 3 p.m. and callbacks being 7 p.m. Dwyer and Padayatti spent the hours practicing in hopes of being able to perform at the closing ceremony.
“My heart was going crazy fast,” Dwyer said. “We went in the callback room and there were so many people. Other people can go watch even if you aren’t performing so a ton of Coppell people were there to watch us. We went pretty close to the end and a lot of the people who performed were really good but we kept telling ourselves that we got this.”
Anxious to advance, the possibility of being able to perform the closing ceremony continued to flash through their minds.
“When we went, the nervousness we felt performing for the judges helped with our scene because our characters were supposed to be on a first date and really nervous,” Dwyer said. “We think it’s what got us a perfect score, but we felt pretty good afterwards.”
Unfortunately, their hopes went unrequited.
“We didn’t end up performing the closing ceremony because only 15 acts out of 113 got chosen so we knew the odds were kind of ‘meh’ but we were really proud,” Dwyer said.
For Padayatti, this moment is even more special as he is one of three sophomores in varsity theater.
“I thought that we did good,” Padayatti said. “I don’t know if we were the best but we fit into the room and we did a great job with our duet. I’m proud of it.”
In addition to the 24 students from CHS, Coppell Middle School West has four national qualifiers in their junior thespian troupe.
The next festival is the International Thespian Festival which will take place at Indiana University from June 23-28.
Staff writer Rhea Choudhary and entertainment editor Ainsley Dwyer contributed to this report.
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