The UIL One Act Play is a contest where different schools around the state work on a play of their choice and perform it at the contest for the judges. The top schools advance to further rounds until there is a state champion. On Friday, March 8, Clements advanced from the district contest and had another competition on Saturday, March 24.

The play they performed was called “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern”. It is about two Hamlet characters named Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and it follows their journey instead of Hamlet’s. It is told from the point of view of those two characters and it goes into topics such as existential crisis.

“It was a lot of fun to explore themes that question, ‘What is life?’ or if the choices we make are really important and ‘How big of an impact do they actually have?’ ” sophomore Billy Fernandez said. “It’s also fun to get to play these types of characters.”

A significant amount of time was put into this play. Everyone in it is either in the 6th or 7th period theater so all of class time was used working on the play or anything related to it. Every weekday after school from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday rehearsals from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. was time that was also used doing things for the play and rehearsing. 

“Some struggles we faced were coming up with our production approach,” junior Alex Lee said. “A production approach is how you choose to present the play and you have to think about the context and location that you’re setting it in.”

The students overcame the obstacles they faced during rehearsing and any hiccups they might have had during performing. After their performance, they listened to the judges’ feedback and agreed to do everything they could to improve individually and as a group even further. They helped each other out every step of the way and prioritized teamwork.

“I think I speak for everyone when I say we were really nervous, especially backstage, but once you get on stage you kind of forget everything,” Fernandez said.  “You’re not nervous anymore, you’re just that moment, in that character, playing off of the rest of your cast members. So it felt amazing and I was confident.”