As with with the high school competition, most groups were average. Still, I was surprised to see how creative and talented the middle school students could be. I was impressed early on with the lead actor in a piece about the Holocaust. I gave that group a good score, but they didn't advance for some strange reason. Another group did a good job with that scene from The Crucible when Mary tries to confess to faking the affliction from the "witches" and Abigail goes nuts with visions of birds attacking her. Some actors were weaker than others, bringing down the overall quality of the piece.
I noticed a curious trend in the large group comedies. Many groups seemed to favor obscure pieces of bizarre writing. I'm not against the use of such writing. Some of my own writing is very similar to one such piece which featured a kind of existential game show. The problem I found with some of these pieces that their experimental nature seemed a bit beyond the grasp of some of the students. Either that, or the writing was simply deficient. Sometimes the quality of the writing was hard to determine because the performance of the group was loud, fast, and frantic. I have no objection to such an artistic choice, except that several groups that I saw seemed to cling to this choice throughout their performance. The noise became a monotone, the speed was uniformly fast and therefore lacking in variety of pace, and the frantic energy eventually became tiresome and also lacking in variety. It seems to have become a common trend, and I find that disappointing.
I did enjoy the musical finals. Avenue Q and Suissical surprised me with their inventiveness and strong performances.
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