A typical Friday night for many LHS students would be working, doing homework, or hanging out with friends –not going to a speech and debate tournament and competing. Even though not many students participate in Speech or Competitive Theatre, there are quite a few students who do. Competitive Theatre is the speech side of the Liberty Speech and Debate program. Whereas students in a Theatre class would practice performing a chosen monologue or script for an audience, Competitive Theatre gives students the freedom to choose their own cutting of a piece of literature from a book or a play for a variety of events and take it to tournaments at other schools and compete.
“Competitive Theatre is a full year class strictly devoted to preparing performance pieces for Speech and Debate competitions,” Competitive Theatre teacher and Forensics coach, Michael Turpin said. “Students are required to attend two tournaments per semester totaling four for the year, students can attend many more than four, but that is the basic requirement to pass the class.”
Students participate in a variety of different events in Competitive Theatre. Many of these events include-
•Humorous Interpretation, most often referred to as HI, which is a humorous memorized piece usually about 10 minutes long and has one person usually playing many different characters
•Storytelling
•Duo which is a dramatic or humorous memorized piece that’s usually 10 minutes long and has two partners acting out different characters but the partners cannot look at or touch each other
•Prose
•Poetry
•Original Oratory
•Dramatic Interpretation often called DI, which is a dramatic memorized piece, which is about 10 minutes long and has one person acting out one or more
characters
•Radio Speaking
•Duet
•Improv Duet Acting
“I do storytelling, HI, Duo, and I think I’m going to cut a DI,” freshman Emily Goodwin said.
Students enjoy having the opportunity to act and compete while showcasing their own talents as well.
“Probably learning that I was allowed to sing in the first part because I’m doing The Nightmare Before Christmas [for my piece] so I get to sing “The Halloween Song,” it’s really fun,” sophomore Cameron Prater said.
Students take their pieces to schools in the North Kansas City and Kansas City area and compete against other teams from different schools for a chance at being first at the tournament.
“Tournaments are usually very long, they happen on Fridays and Saturdays typically,” Turpin said. “They will start roughly on Friday at 3:30 [p.m.] and conclude anywhere from 9:00 to 10:00 p.m. in the evenings, and then on Saturday it’s usually an 8:00 [a.m.] start time and the awards ceremony and [the] tournament usually will conclude around 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. on the Saturday evening.”
Along with tournaments at other schools, students can also qualify to go to MSHAA Districts and the State or to NFL (National Forensics League) Districts, and then Nationals.
“Ok so I got 4th at NFL Districts, I broke to top like 32 I broke to Quarterfinals at Nationals in Storytelling,” senior Josie Emery said. “Well, last weekend that was Parkhill I got Fifth in Prose, Blue Springs South I got First in Prose, Fort Osage I got Third in Prose and Fourth in DI.”
Competitive Theatre is a fun activity and gives not only gives students the chance to win, but it also teaches team building and helps students work with each other.
“[I like] The teamwork, the team building, and just the team overall becoming one as a team and conquering,” junior Josh Munden said.
Students involved with Competitive Theatre enjoy what they do because they form friendships and get to do what they love.
“I’ve always done Theatre for my entire life and it’s just a way to like connect with people that have similarities just like I do and it’s just really fun, it’s a fun thing to do, to be a part of,” Goodwin said.