What can I say about senior Theatresports in the year of our Lord 2019? Well, it has been a roller-coaster of a year for sure. We began the journey in February doubting whether or not we would be able to put a team together, as the great exodus of yr13’s at the end of 2018 had only left Daniel Fogarty and myself as eligible candidates. For much of the year we were unable to practise as we searched the school for a third member of the team. Finally, our prayers were answered in the form of the Will Topham, whose performance as Willard in the Villa/STC production of Footloose had inspired him to give improv a go. After wrangling Will we then began a ‘rigorous’ training regime to get into shape for our competition coming up in September. Will picked up the do’s and don’ts of Theatresports extremely quickly and we felt pretty confident going into our heat (as confident as one can be when it comes to improv). Before we knew it was the Sunday the 8th of September…. competition time!

The three of us showed up at Rangi Ruru prepared to improvise (a bit of an oxymoron if you will). We were up against such formidable opponents as Hagley, St Margaret’s, Burnside and newcomers Riccarton High. We started as Theatresports competitions often do with the blind round. In this round teams choose randomly from 6 pre-set games all with varying rules and (at least for us) levels of difficulty. According to God’s good providence we were given He-said She-said, a game in which players must provide stage directions for one another, on top of their own lines. For this, Daniel and I managed to get scored a 6/10. The second round: the choice round, is pretty self-explanatory. But I’ll explain it anyway: in this round teams were able to choose the games they wanted to play. Our first pick, a game called “tag-out” was taken by the first team to perform so we were left with our second option: “Actor’s Switch”. In this game the players play out a scene and when the MC calls switch the actors change places and take on the role of the player to their left….it sounds complicated, but you really have to be there to see it. For this the three of us managed to get 7/10. The last round was what’s called a challenge round. For this, each team must play a scene with a challenge given to them by one of the other teams. Once again, rather self-explanatory. In this round we did an “English-Gibberish switch” with the challenge: “a scene about being famous”. For our scene about a ‘Jamaican’ primary-school runner (Daniel) and his underdog opponent (Will) we scored an 8/10. We had been keeping track of the scores of other teams and by our calculations we were at the top of the table, with only one more team left to perform. Riccarton High performing a scene with the challenge “one character must be cocky” (given by us) managed to score highly and a bonus point from the judges set them half a point ahead of us, placing them in first.

Though, at the end of the day we were not the winners, I can say with certainty that I am very proud of the team, especially Will, who competed in his first and last Theatresports competition for STC and did a cracking good job! The competition was made all the better by the presence of our loyal supporters including Pawel, Romek and Jacob (some theatresports old hands from way back…in 2018). Overall, I think we did extremely well, considering the last-minute nature of our team. But hey, it isn’t theatresports without some on-the-spot components!

And finally, a huge thank you to Mrs Gaffaney, without whom, we wouldn’t have the slightest clue as to what we are doing. Her coaching and support have allowed us to perform well and most of all, learn to enjoy ourselves.

Here’s to the 2020 Theatresports ‘season’, and for finding fresh recruits to fill the ranks.