Oak Hill High School Drama Wins Regionals

Oak Hill High School Drama will advance to the Indiana Thespians State Conference after winning regionals on Saturday.

Oak Hill Drama has competed in regionals three times, but this is the first time they have won.

“Huntington University hosted us, and then it’s run by a host school,” Aeron Kincaid, the Oak Hill drama director said, “Blackhawk Christian was the host school for Huntington. Indiana Thespians brings in three judges to adjudicate the show.”

Kincaid explained that Indiana Thespians provided a standard rubric for the judges to use. Four schools competed in this regional competition, and the two highest-scored shows advanced to state.

Hannah Strange is an Oak Hill student who has been in 11 shows for Oak Hill Drama.

“I feel like we can still go into state as confident as we went to regionals, because I think it’s important to be confident, even though it’s our first year, but still knowing that there’s also a lot of other talented schools,” Strange said, “And knowing that, but also being confident in our work and ourselves.”

Hannah Middlesworth is another Oak Hill student who has been in nine of their shows.

“This year, honestly, was way less stressful. I think it’s because we started rehearsing the show much earlier,” Middlesworth said, “I just felt more confident going into regional day, and I just felt like I could count on other people this time around.”

Oak Hill performed “100 Things I Never Said to You,” a play about teenagers wrestling with grief about a classmate who passed away.

“There’s 100 different monologues, and each monologue is a different student,” Strange said, “So, like, I’m seven different students, but we don’t actually have names for our characters.”

“We obviously sought permission due to the content of dealing with death, and I wanted to make sure the students were okay with performing something that would be that powerful and going through grief, because you don’t know what story each kid holds,” Kincaid said, “But I think it’s been pretty cathartic for every student that’s been involved.”

The Indiana Thespians State Competition will take place from Jan. 24 to Jan. 26, hosted by Avon High School.

“It got moved from Indiana Wesleyan to Avon,” Kincaid said, “IWU hosted it last year and then three years ago.”

Strange and Middlesworth emphasized that confidence was a large part of what helped Oak Hill Drama win regionals.

“We’ve made it this far, I feel like we have a really good chance at going further,” Middlesworth said.

“It’s really cool to see that they are just as capable as everyone else to achieve something like this,” Kincaid said, “I’m giving them a little bit of rest, because they’re actually going into auditions next week for the spring musical, and then we’ll pick it back up in December, then January, we’ll do probably a few more community performances, and then we’ll take it to state.”