TEXARKANA, Texas - This Saturday, Pleasant Grove High School Curtain Call Productions will present the play that won them a silver medal in state competition.
Starting at 7 p.m. at the Pleasant Grove High School Performing Arts Center, the young thespians will showcase the talent that brought them kudos at the UIL 4A One Act Play competition.
The team will present "The Voice of the Prairie," a play by John Olive. The public is invited to attend. The one act show runs a shade under 40 minutes. It's free to see, and the event includes an awards presentation and farewells to graduating Curtain Call Productions students.
Debby Sutton, director of theater at PGHS, couldn't be prouder of her students, who persevered through a tough year to accomplish the honors.
"It's our seniors' final performance. They put in four years here. We'll do the show and then at the end of the show we honor each one of those seniors, and the very last thing they take their final bow as members of Curtain Call Productions," Sutton said. "It's a great night."
Expect them to thank everyone who helped put it all together. Silver medals will be presented. "It truly does take a village," Sutton said.
What made this show so successful for them? The seniors set the foundation for the success, she said, with incredible leadership and work ethic.
"This group of seniors. They are an absolutely amazing group of seniors. Incredibly talented, but more importantly they are so respectful and kind. They love the work. No matter what I threw at them, they said, 'Yes, and? Give me more,'" Sutton said.
They even arranged and wrote music for the show.
"It is just an incredible show. Every single sound effect, everything is created by the students on the stage, and that is their creativity," Sutton said. "I gave them the idea, like 'here's what I'd like to see. Show me what you can come up with.'"
But the students crafted it all and continued to layer aspects of the show, adding improvements even as they rode the bus to the San Antonio area to compete at the state level.
"Their leadership has been incredible," Sutton said about their performance of a play that chronicles a friendship between a blind girl named Frankie and Davey Quinn, who meet as teenagers. The story consists of a series of flashbacks told by older versions of each character (then known as Frances and David).
"It's just a beautiful story of first love and then reuniting and finding each other, and growth. It's an amazing story," Sutton said.
(More info: Facebook.com/pghstheatre.)