by Darius Davila | Staff Writer

For the first time in the history of the school’s existence ,Johnson theatre is on its way to compete in the state competition. As the competition date draws near, the theatre department is preparing to put on a memorable performance.

“The state competition is up at UT Austin and we get to perform at Bass concert hall with a total of eight schools from San Antonio competing. It will be held on May 22, and it’s basically been like a tournament up till this point. We moved from district, to area, to region and now we’re at state. Now we just have to perform one more time and do our best, because there are only eight teams left and they’re from all over Texas,” sophomore cast member Alexa Wilson said.

The Johnson theatre department will be performing scenes from Unexpected Tenderness written by Israel Horovitz.

“Our play is about this dysfunctional family and sort of a coming of age story of a boy. The play is basically a bunch of memories and how this boy’s dad liberates him from an abusive environment and he learns to become a better man because of it,” junior cast member Joshua Riding said.

Although the story contains some very sad and gloomy material, it is an uplifting and positive play.

“What makes it such a great story is that it has the drama but it also has comic relief as well. In the end it’s ultimately a happy play, and it’s a very emotional play because of the mental and physical abuse, but you come to love the story because the boy overcomes all that,” Riding said.

There are different divisions that compete in theatre, in which  a schools division is dependent on the size of the school.

“Divisions are based on the size of the school and amount of resources it has, so for 3A schools it would be kind of easier to compete, because of smaller schools and limited resources,” Riding said. “5As only compete against other 5A schools and 3As against other 3As so that it will be equal and fair.”

The competition is becoming more intense as another school performs the same play as the Johnson theatre.

“I feel excited that we made it to state, it’s the first time we made it past region and I think we have a good chance of winning. There is another school doing the same play as us which is crazy so we’re definitely gonna have to step up our game to see who wins in the end,” Riding said.