Christoval High School Drama Team to Advance to State

For the first time in three decades the Christoval High School drama team will be advancing to the state UIL One-Act Play contest May 21, with an adaption of “The Rimers of Eldritch” written by playwright Lanford Wilson.

The contest will feature eight plays performed by 1A schools from all over the state, who have acted their way through zone, district, area and regional contests for the right to compete against the final eight—of 318 total—for the state title.

“I’m just excited about going to state,” CHS Drama Director Travis Morganstean said. “That’s been our goal since the beginning of the year, so anything else is just a cherry on top, really.”

The production Morganstean chose this year is actually a full-length play that he chopped down to meet the 40-minute time requirement for the competition. He chose what to keep and scratch, he said, with the goal of maintaining the playwright’s intended message.

Centered on a small Christian town in the Bible Belt, the play circulates around the theme of judgment and includes a friendship between two teens, a hated town hermit, and a teenage girl’s sexual taunts. Scenes depicting gossip, assault and murder comprise the play’s climax, and hypocrisy is rampant throughout.

Reactions to the content and message have been overall positive, Morganstean said, but he has heard that others have received complaints.

“The play’s a lot about judging people, putting people into a certain category and labeling people and the consequences that can lead to,” he explains. “It does use the church as a form of showing people being two-faced, if you will. It takes place in the Bible Belt and the whole community is a Christian community, but there’s lots of things that go on inside the homes of these individuals that you wouldn’t necessarily feel a Christian would do. I think that’s where people think it’s controversial. They think that we are saying that all Christians are like this, and that’s obviously not my intention whatsoever.”

The intended message, he said, and the message he hopes to convey through the play, is that people should not discriminate on the basis of stereotypes.

“It’s human nature to make judgments about others,” Morganstean writes in his Director’s Notes. “We label. We make sense of the world around us by placing people in categories. Unfortunately, at times we base our perceptions of others on those judgments and labels. The characters in The ‘Rimers of Eldritch’ portray how we often tend to project our own values and beliefs onto others, and then label them as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ based on their willingness to go along with us.”

Morganstean said he chose the play for a number of reasons, but the biggest factor in his decision was the depth and difficulty of the roles. He’s included nine seniors in the cast for this production—an unusually high number for a cast of 15 in such a small high school—and said not only have they exhibited great leadership skills, but have been able to take on their roles with great talent.

“These characters are hard characters, they’re deep characters and they had to work hard,” Morganstean said. “It’s a hard show to act, it’s a very acting-heavy show and I knew I had the talent and I wanted to push the kids and make them work. I knew that they could do it.”

“The Rimers of Eldritch” has qualified for the state competition 16 times, Morganstean said, each director producing his own version. Feedback from judges and parents alike has been very positive so far, he said, and the team is excited to perform in Austin.

“The critics—the judges—have really loved it, from the beginning, from zone,” Morganstean said. “Two of the judges said it’s the best Rimers [of Eldritch] they’ve ever seen. One of the judges has mentioned—he had actually directed this play before—and he wished he’d seen our production first so he could steal everything we did.”

The Christoval High School drama team will meet some tough competition at the state level, including productions led by two defending directors who have won the competition in the past. Morganstean will also be up against a production directed by his high school drama teacher.

“We’re headed to this contest and we’re already feeling like winners,” he said. “Going to state was our goal. Of course we want to win, and we’re going to try to win, but we’re going against the defending state champion and another defending state champion director, so it’s going to be a hard contest. There’s going to be lots of good shows there, but we’re excited.”

The UIL One-Act Play contest was founded in 1927 and is the largest high school play contest in the world.

Thursday, May 8, Christoval High School will put on a public performance of “The Rimers of Eldritch” at the school at 6:00 p.m.