PARIS – Vivid imaginations and basic theatre smarts helped a group of seventh-graders involved in the Destination Imagination competition to earn the regional title.
The group of seven from the Oxford Hills Middle School won the regional competition at Central Maine Technical College on March 15 by defeating about 12 other middle school teams in the live theatre category.
Last year four students from this group competed in the middle school category even though they were in sixth-grade at Guy E. Rowe School in Norway.
The four were Amelia Moore, Daniel Millett, Danielle Giansanti and Benjamin Reis. They also won at the regional level and placed seventh in the state competition.
This year Molly Pietroski, Justin Gilmore and Kyle Ivey joined the four veterans. All the students are from Norway, except Pietroski, who is from Paris.
Now, the group of seventh-graders must perform their creation, “The Dueling Didgeridoos (an Aborigine’s musical instrument) Dudes” to the state competition Saturday. The winner here will go on to the global competition in Nashville, Tenn., on May 20-24.
The Saturday competition will be held at UMaine in Orono from about 9 a.m. until the late afternoon to early evening.
Giansanti said she thinks the team will do better at the state competition this year.
“We have a lot more experience and a lot more humor,” she said. “The judges really liked us at regionals.”
The Oxford Hills students, who could have chosen any one of six categories, decided on THEATER smARTS. There were five levels of competition based on age and grade.
In this category the students had to create a live performance about a troupe of entertainers that is disrupted. They then have to continue with the show.
Points are awarded for the novelty and uniqueness of the live performance, the disruption and how the students deal with it.
Sally Reis, the team manager, said the students chose the subject last fall.
She explained that the students begin the presentation by doing a sidewalk circus.
“Through a miscommunication they end up putting on two plays at the same time,” Reis said.
She said half of the troupe thinks they are presenting a play called Scot’s Farmyard while the other half thinks the play is called Scotland Yard.
“Their challenge is to combine both plays as one,” Reis said. “For example, the cow in the farmyard play becomes the spy dog in the Scotland Yard play.”
Reis said about 15 teams will be competing in that category on the state level.
Shirley Allen of Norway is the district manager who coordinates all the teams in Oxford Hills area.
jsmedley@sunjournal.com
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