Iola High School’s forensics team is striving for some repeat success this weekend, even if it is unscripted. FRIDAY’S ONE-ACT piece, “The Katrina Project: Hell and High Water,” examines life in the Gulf Coast — particularly New Orleans — before, during and after the 2005 arrival of Hurricane Katrina. Performing are Justin Baker, Abbey and Zach St. Clair, Stahl, Michaela Ingle, Katie Terhune, Luken and Judd Wiltse.
With seniors Cody Cokely and Colton Schubert, Iola has the defending state champion in improvised duet acting, an exercise in which the performers are given 30 minutes to develop a skit from characters, settings and situations they’ve been presented.
Cokely and Schubert are part of Iola’s full roster of competitors who will be in Topeka Saturday for the State Speech and Drama Championships. On Friday, a group of IHS thespians will be in Kansas City, Kan., for the state one-act competition.
“The thing about IDA is it all depends on that day,” instructor and forensics team adviser Regina Chriestenson said. “Nothing is guaranteed.”
In order to repeat, Schubert and Cokely will have to overcome a talented crop of performers from across the state. Their toughest competitors, however, may well be their schoolmates.
Also entering IDA submissions are sophomores Trilby Bannister and Emma Piazza, who had the audience in stitches with their portrayals of Big Bird and a stalker pen salesman; senior Jordan Strickler and junior Michael Wilson; and freshmen Zach St. Clair and Olivia Bannister.
Iola’s bevy of performers extends far beyond the world of improv.
Seniors Chanel Coyne and Elijah Grover will enter their duet acting piece, “Wizard of Oz,” — Coyne is Dorothy while Groaver is the rest of the central characters. Senior classmates Danielle Venter and Jordan Garcia will portray an estranged couple going through an uproarious session with “The Marriage Counselor.”
Trilby Bannister returns to the stage with her humorous solo acting piece “The Brothers Grimm Spectaculathon: Snow White,” a twisted variation of the fairy tale. Sophomore Madison Luken will portray a confidence-challenged monster and his trash-talking nemesis from outer space in “Alien Monster Bowling League.”
The entries aren’t all humorous.
Danielle Venter’s haunting portrayal of a battered girlfriend is Iola’s only serious solo acting entry, “Leslie’s Journal.”
And then there’s the speaking.
Schubert’s “Daddy’s Little Girl,” Drew Smith’s “Trevor” and Strickler’s “Of Mice And Men” are entered in oral interpretation of prose.
Catherine Venter’s “Cinderella” and Audrea Stahl’s “Local Anesthesia” are entered in oral interpretation of poetry.
Abbey St. Clair, meanwhile, offers up a pair of speaking entries. She has an informative piece of surviving in the wilderness in Alaska, and an extemporaneous speaking entry in which she must develop an informative speech shortly after being given the topic.
Iola’s squad has a healthy mixture of experience and youth, Chriestenson noted. Thirteen of the 23 performers going to state have performed at the state level before.
Iola forensics statebound
