The Canyon Ridge High School drama department had five finalists at their State drama competition, which took place in December at Thunder Ridge High School in Idaho Falls this year. CRHS’s finalists included Matthew Myers, Diemery Wolters, Olivia Valentiner, Saphira Judkins, and Lily Triplett.
Senior Matthew Myers took 4th place in Solo Humorous and was a finalist in Original Humorous. Matthew’s Original Humorous event also required him to write his own comedy script in addition to performing it. His Original Humorous piece focused on dark humor and was inspired by the show Dexter. Additionally, he chose a solo humorous piece based on the Stephan King mythology.
“A lot went into [preparing for] it… redoing your scene over and over, as much as possible, or redoing your speech if it’s for tech, you really want to get as much practice in as possible… [and] memorize every single thing,” Matthew said.
Juniors Diemry Wolters and Olivia Valentiner competed as a partnership in Makeup Design and took third at State. To create their makeup design for State competition, Diemry and Olivia had to learn about makeup prosthetics. Neither of them had experience with makeup design prior to this year.
“For me and my partner, since we’d never done makeup design before, it took a lot of research, specifically in the world of SFX (Special Effects Makeup) [and] prosthetics,” Olivia said. Technical events like makeup design also require a memorized speech, and makeup specifically must be reapplied every round.
Olivia and Diemry based their makeup design on a character from the book Don’t Let the Forest in. Their design involved a rose growing out of their model’s eye. Their design had a horror tone to it, which is a style rarely seen at State.
“Me and Olivia had such a good time that day that we didn’t really care what we did or how we placed because we were both really excited that we did make it to State, and we met a lot of really kind people there… we were all really lighthearted and happy,” Diemry said.
Senior Saphira Judkins took fifth place at State in Solo Serious. Saphira’s solo serious piece was a portion of a script about a postpartum mother confronting another woman.
Her piece required large amounts of research on one of her character’s health issues, called De Quervain’s syndrome, which she had to portray. This syndrome, caused by an inflamed tendon sheath in the hand, affects hand mobility, preventing Saphira from using one of her hands in the performance. Saphira said State drama was “scary, but so incredible” and “so hard to explain.”
Junior Lily Triplett was a finalist in the Solo Humorous event. Lily’s Solo Humorous piece was a portion of a script about a girl named Joan sitting in the movie theatre on Thanksgiving and interacting with another person there.
Although she was challenged with a prop malfunction during her final performance when her chip bag’s bottom popped and spilled over her, she improvised her way through the unexpected challenge by eating the chips. She described State drama as “absolutely nerve-wracking.”
In addition to these qualifiers, two freshmen, Andrew Robinson and Magnus McVay, took their Ensemble Humorous piece as far as the semifinals, which is rare for first-time State drama competitors.
