San Angelo Broadway Academy Advances to State Theatre Competition

It took only six weeks for the cast of “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” to learn their music in the fall of 2013, an impressive show for the cast of teens, who have taken on traditionally adult-filled roles.

After doing some severe cutting to the script and adapting their roles from 90 down to 60 minutes, the six cast members and seven-member crew from the San Angelo Broadway Academy (SABA) achieved a first in the community’s history last weekend, when they were chosen to advance to the Texas AACTFest (American Association of Community Theatre).

The competition, which took place in quadrants in four Texas cities on Saturday, marked SABA’s first-ever entry into a competition since the academy was established in 2006, said Founder and Executive Director Angela Hill.

Hill explained that she had thought of taking part in competitions in the past, but since most take place in January in Georgia, attending hasn’t really been feasible for her cast or crew.

A lot of SABA’s productions include expansive casts of 70-80, and taking a group of that size on the road can also be a hindrance to competition.

“We do a main stage show and then we shut it down and we really don’t ever peek at it again, but I had done Charlie Brown and there was only six of them (actors) and all of them were still here except two were in college…and I thought, ‘This works out perfectly. We’ll rehearse every Christmas and then just see what happens,’” Hill said.

Hill said only a few of her students have been involved in theatrical UIL competitions, and she herself hasn’t gone to UIL competitions in 25 years, so she felt attending a similar competition would be a benefit to her cast and crew.

“It was quite an awakening to us,” she said. “We had to take Charlie Brown and bring it in to 60 minutes—I think we ran it in an hour and a half in real time—so we had to cut the script.”

Hill estimated that she worked with the 13 cast and crew members for roughly two weeks, snipping bits out of the original and bringing it back together between ice, snow and bouts with the flu over Christmas break.

The rules of the performance added another layer of difficulty, as each theatre group was given a total of 80 minutes broken down into three blocks to set up, perform and tear down.

“…when they started running the blocks it was literally kind of a nightmare because you had 10 minutes to unload, 60 minutes to perform and 10 minutes to get out,” Hill explained. “It was push come to shove and we finished with about two minutes to spare.”

Lighting, sound and props all had to be set within those 10 minutes, and nothing was permitted to be prepared in advance, Hill said.

“We had one of our graduated seniors—he’s a freshman [in college] this year—he designed the lights in 10 minutes and he’s never done anything like that before,” Hill said, “so that was really cool for him to experience and learn.”

Competing against three other communities comprising Quad 1, including Snyder, Lubbock and Midland, the performers of the San Angelo Broadway Academy were in it as much for the experience as for the win, Hill said.

Going up against communities that take regular part in competitions was a bit daunting, and no one really knew how to place SABA when the band of teenagers first arrived in Midland on Jan. 10.

“I think the other theatres that were there, when they saw the kids, they were expecting kind of a ‘cardboard box theatre,’ you know, something you’d see in a high school cafeteria,” she said. “They didn’t know what to expect, I guess, being kids. They were questioning, are you guys in college? Is this a high school group? You know, what are you?

When the judges announced San Angelo Broadway Academy as the winner, everyone was shocked, Hill said, noting that they’d come with the intention to learn, not with the expectation to win.

“The goal for me was, ‘hey, let’s try this only as an educational tool for the kids,’” she said. “I’m always trying to look at things to broaden their horizons and give them a different view of things…”

Two performers with SABA, Katelyn Sarbach and Michael Garza, received All Star Cast awars, and the company as a whole was awarded with the Outstanding Achievement Award for Choreography.

With roughly two months between now and the Texas AACTFest, Hill said the group will meet on weekends and work on things the judges pointed at the Midland competition.

One of the cast members attends Texas State, she said, so practice times with the full cast are limited, but the cast and crew have a clear idea of what they need to improve before they head to Lewisville.

“One of the things they pegged us on was the transitions…” Hill said. “When you’re cutting a musical, you really want to keep the musical numbers in because they’re telling the story, but you cut out the dialog, so when you’re transitioning to a different scene…it gets a little bit tricky.”

Another thing the judges noted was the emphasis on character, Hill said. The teens are playing kids that approximately 6 years old, so they need to work hard to emphasize those childlike emotions and portray them to the audience.

“…Lucy’s constantly got to be loud and annoying and just rude all the time; Sally’s got to be an airhead all the time; and Charlie Brown—even though he’s mopey and bummed all the time, it has to come across much, much bigger,” she explained. “I tell my students ‘you have to make really bold choices in theatre so those people 50 yards away can see what you’re doing.’”

Aside from the character work and transition smoothing, the props and costumes will remain the same throughout the competition. At the state competition, SABA will compete against nine other Texas communities for the chance to advance to the Region VI festival in Albuquerque, N.M. April 8-12.

Only the top two productions are selected to go on to the regional festival, which will also include finalists from Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico. 

“I’m very excited,” she said. “I told the students no matter what happens we have to take this as a great learning experience and an opportunity that you can put on your resume when you go off to college. I think by getting the advancement that definitely got everybody excited…”

“You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown” consists of a cast of young actors, including Regan Oaks as Charlie Brown, Brandi Brown as Snoopy, Alicia Cornwell as Sally, Ben Settle as Linus, Katelyn Sarbach as Lucy and Michael Garza as Schroder.

Crew members for the show are Hillary Loyd, Andrea Perez, Lindy Vaught, Sean Gibbons, Aly Bean, Micha Floyd and Chris Loyd.