One Act quest comes to bittersweet landing at State
The fall One-Act play season has met its bittersweet end with the conclusion of the WISDAA (Wisconsin Interscholastic Speech & Dramatic Arts Association) State Theatre festival at UW Stevens Point on November 21. Cast members of ‘Pearl,’ many of whom are seniors, are working to balance the feelings of finality.
Throughout the year, the dramatists managed to make it from districts, to sectionals, through two public performances, and finally State. After each performance the cast and crew work hard to improve as best they could with the feedback given from the adjudicators. Following sectionals at Neenah High School, Director and English teacher, Lexi Novak, made sure to work on some movement and acting aspects, all while attempting not to alter the show too much and throw off the cast.
“We mainly focused on what the judges’ notes were saying and what they suggested; we didn’t want to change a ton of our show since we didn’t have a lot of time with the variety show and concerts getting in the way of rehearsing,” she said. “The main change was blocking for the dead women to make them more present in the show. Also trying to have our actors react as if they’re hearing something for the first time.”
photo by Novally Thao
Assistant director and science teacher Logan Martilla noted some more minor changes in a couple of the actors’ appearances.
“Another thing was more from a technical standpoint, specifically changing up makeup, like dirtying up someone if they’re supposed to be working in the field or making someone who’s supposed to be old look old.”
For junior Grace Schellinger, using and relating instances from her personal life improved her overall connection with her character.
“It was in the moments where I was sad in my personal life, I kind of looked at myself and thought about how I’m feeling and how I can put this into my acting,” she said. “It really did help my acting and realizing what I have to carry and how these women in the show have to carry it as well”
Senior Wilson Clark worked to include more variety in his performance.
“I tried to expand the way I expressed my character’s emotions, specifically changing the way I used movement to show emotion,” he said.
It’s been a long and bumpy ride for the team to reach this point, requiring effort and adaptability. The state performance was no different, providing a swath of technical hurdles for the group to handle on the fly, specifically a change in the location from a true theater to a performance hall. Novak explained that having so many schools performing in one place makes it difficult for each school to have an equally adequate performance space.
“UW campuses tend to not have two actual theaters, so half of the shows have to be in a performance hall which does not have the same access as a standard theater. Instead of having wings and being able to come in from both sides, we had to enter the stage through a singular door, which is extremely hard when you have an entire set.”
Despite the difficulty, Novak recognizes the students abilities to adapt to the non-ideal situation; however, despite the cast’s perseverance, the issue caused them to go over the 40 minutes time limit which puts a cap on the amount of awards they can receive.
“Unfortunately we did go over time by a decent amount, however, none of that is on the students or our set, all of that is on the space that we are in,” Novak said. “So thankfully all of our students were extremely resilient and persevered through that issue.”
Martilla feels that even with the difficulties the cast should still be pleased with their performance and how well they handled the situation.
“The students should be proud of their performance today, even with that technical difficulty, they did get through it, especially they adjusted well with the change of blocking due to the space,” he said.
Schellinger acknowledges the difficulty of the one act in general, having to perform in a different school on a foreign stage without any prior practice makes the one act harder than any other show.
“Part of the one act is that you perform in different places, whereas like any other show you practice and perform in your own auditorium and you’re used to that space so I definitely think that this was hard to get used to because the stage was very different from other stages.”
Although the cast faced multiple challenges during their trek to state, they still managed to pull off their performance, in particular, junior Genna Williams, who earned an individual outstanding acting award for her role as Rosemary. She feels she couldn’t have done it without the community around her,
“I wouldn't be able to get the award if I weren’t able to build off my castmates.”
The most important contribution to her success was due to the comforting atmosphere that her peers created. With scenes as intense as hers, including one where her character is killed by another cast member, the importance of these kinds of relationships cannot be overstated.
“Making a safe environment to immerse ourselves in was important. I always felt safe in all my scenes, never once did I feel uncomfortable while I was doing it.”
The cast member Williams had to work the closest with was Clark, who played Father. The two had to work closely together in order to get the death scene, not only comfortable for the both of them, but look realistic as well.
“Genna and I had probably one of the hardest scenes in the play but she was always just absolutely fantastic, and I am just so impressed,” Clark said.
Overall, Williams feels this honoration is an incredible, but unexpected one.
“It’s really shocking, this entire season I’ve been very down on myself, so it feels really good, but I didn’t expect it. I don’t think anyone really expects this kind of thing.”
Senior Aura Wallace enjoyed seeing Williams growth over the years.
“I worked closely with Genna last year and this year, and I am so proud to see how much she has grown as an actress and as a person,” she said. “She is such a wonderful person to work with and we worked very closely together and I'm so so proud of her.”
Schellinger applauds all of Williams’ hard work and dedication to her role. The cast and crew had a heartfelt moment seconds after hearing the news from the judges.
“I am so very proud of Genna, the work that she has put into this role is absolutely admirable of her and we are so very proud of her,” Novak said. “At the end after the judges left we all came together with her and we all cried because we were so excited and that was a really beautiful moment. I’m proud to be with everyone.”
Novak wishes people understood just how demanding it is to even make it to State.
“I am really sad it’s over because I really enjoy this show. I’m really excited that we get to represent our program by having that state award on the wall,” Novak said. “I think people don’t understand that just getting to State is a huge accomplishment for one act, only about a third of one act that makes it to sections go to state and sectionals is only a third of district so it's actually very complicated, and I hope everyone is very proud of themselves.”
by Isaac Considine-Buelow and Tenna Ruetten
Published December 1, 2025
Oshkosh West Index Volume 122 Issue III