Powerful Performances

The Competitive Theatre team competes in hopes of placing for their performance skills.

Chloe Franklin, Reporter|January 9, 2023

Sophomore Rae Reeve (left) and senior Addie Vallier (right) practice their duo interpretation in the Thespian classroom before leaving for a tournament at Raytown High School. Vallier placed third at the UCM Mini Mule Tournament on Dec. 2 and 3. “It’s a kind of an endurance thing, both physically and mentally, but all the kids are ready to continue the rest of the season,” Speech and Debate Co-Director Mick

  The speech and debate team had an eventful start to their season with strong performances from both varsity and novice members on Oct 7-8 at Blue Springs and Blue Springs South. During the season, the group travels to different schools in the Metro-KC area every Friday and Saturday and competes in events for a chance to place on the State level. If they place high enough, the team will move onto semi-final rounds until they eventually get their rank among the final group of qualifiers. 

    “I like the competition because it gives you goals to keep working, and it’s really fun to perform and watch your peer’s performance improve,” junior Bennett Chapman said. Chapman recently placed first in his duo interpretation at North KC. 

    The majority of members enjoy the environment of this group because they learn a lot of helpful skills that they will use in the future. They learn skills such as research, organization, and communication and will use these skills later in their life.

    “They continue to show up every single weekend, and we go out and compete, whether it’s a group of 50 kids or a small group of 12,” Fine Arts teacher Mick Turpin said. “The quality and everything that they do is exceptional. I just think that speaks to the culture we have here on this team together.”

    Turpin travels with the team each weekend month to month and enjoys building a personal relationship with them. He enjoys how the team connects with each other and the performances they create together. Whether they are novices or varsity members, he believes they all have collectively done well individually and is excited to see what happens next for the team.

     For the rest of the season, they have 13 competitions left before they have State and National Competitions April 20-22 in Springfield and June 11-16 in Phoenix, Arizona. 

    “I just hope that our students can continue to prepare cases and performances that they are proud of, and represent our team and school at a high caliber, high-competitive level,” Turpin said. 

   Students on the team enjoy pushing themselves to do the best work they can and enjoy seeing that work pay off with their places in events. Bennett Chapman and Elinor Dow received first place in their duo interpretation during their first tournament and second place in their second tournament both of which were at North KC. 

    “It’s a lot of work, but the work pays off and it’s a lot of fun to perform for people,” Chapman said. 

The team’s next competition is Dec 2-3 At William Chrisman and UCM. For more updates on the team, check out @MrTurpinLHS on Twitter.