Following a 5-year hiatus, The Woodlands High School Theater has restarted Twilight Zone. A competition based on the hit show from the 1960s, The Twilight Zone, students perform episodes from the series. Adding a fun twist, actors and technicians switch ‘roles’ and try different positions in the theater they never held before.
To add to the challenge, everything is student run. Each grade is in charge of performing an episode, with student directors, stage managers, technicians and actors. The hope? That one class will rise above and win the coveted prize: Best Show.
“The show process was so secretive, we didn’t know what the other grades were up to,” Sophomore Stage Manager Vanessa Cisneros said.
Resembling that of a UIL One Act Play, each show has a 7-minute set up and strike to get all set pieces, props, costumes, lights and sound in place.
“It is pretty stressful, since you have to set up everything in those seven minutes,” Cisneros said. “Then again, our set was pretty easy to build so we never ran out of time.”
With a limited run time of 30 minutes, it is crucial to perform within the allotted time or risk getting eliminated.
For some, it seemed the run time was too much.
“Me and Otto even had concerns that our show was too short,” Junior Co-Director Colton Frye said. “The first time we ran it, it was 15 minutes or something like that.”
Having only four weeks of rehearsals, each grade determines how they spend their time.
“Twilight Zone was a very sandwiched process,” Frye said. “We rehearsed over the course of a month.”
All of this is in hopes of hitting it big at the awards ceremony. With awards such as best actor, best technician, best sound, and best tech, it is important that each grade puts on a stellar performance.
In the end, the juniors managed to take home best show.
“It was really emotional, because the juniors are such a close-knit class, we all burst into tears and were really happy,” Junior Stage Manager Nadalina Krattiger said.
Of course, there is more to the show than just awards. At its core, Twilight Zone serves as a way for people to experience new things.
“The whole point of Twilight Zone is for people to learn things,” Frye said.
