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Tristan Reiha (Non-playing substitute), Zeb Lumb, Eli Muir, Aaron Brighton, Xavier Anisy
 
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THEATREPORTS 2021

Xavier Anisy —

THEATREPORTS 2021

With a disappointing loss in the semi-finals last year, we were back to reinforce that we were a force to be reckoned with in the world of high school Theatresports. With two trainings a week for a term or two and the strong scent of victory on our minds, we were determined to win the Regional Theatresports competition.

Each competition consists of three rounds: the Blind Round, Chosen Round and the ever-daunting Challenge Round. In each round players have to get ask-fors from the audience to base the scene on. The Blind Round you play is chosen for you from six different games: Poem, Shared Style Story, Speak in One Voice, He said/ She said, Word at a Time Story and Yes And Experts. We got the dreaded game Poem. The audience gave us the name Giggles and added the activity Swimming. Eli set the pace and Zeb tried to deal with rhymes Aaron and I set. Line by line we added detail and wit. We thought we did quite well as we wanted to start with a leading score but the judges put us in second place so we knew we had to pick up the pace.

For the chosen round we selected Slow-Motion Commentary. We entertained the audience with a competitive showing of the Olympic sport of dog grooming where we showed the true essence of speed and comedy in perfect unison. Aaron and Eli were commentating on the intense moment with Zeb and me being extremely slow at grooming our chosen dogs - the sausage dog and the shiatzu. However, the judge's score disappointed us as we did not move quite slowly enough to satisfy the technical judge and we had put ourselves under real pressure to move through to the Final as we were now lying third.

In the third and final round you are given a challenge to include in your scene. We were told, "You must have something sticky within your scene." We took this on board and performed an Open Scene which has no specific rules to follow so we had total control of the scene and could do what we liked. We had to gain many points to get from the devastating third place to first. Would we make it?

We did a parody of Robocop - great story line. Aaron was Robocop and was hilarious. Eli, who played the glue gunner in this scene (sticky right?!), was being hunted down in revenge for Robocop’s death by Zeb and me, the stereotypical sidekicks. It was the epitome of great improvisation. We filled the stage with humour and the audience was full of smiles and laughs. Aaron and I said plenty of bad jokes with Zeb and Eli dealing with it. Full of bad puns and complex jokes we made the judges really see the power that we had within our team.

When the final announcement was made we had won. Finally. Eli fell to the floor; Aaron couldn’t believe it, and Zeb and I were also in disbelief. We had made it to the final round for the Theatresports competition for the first time in four years - and then it was cancelled because of Covid restrictions.

We hope to be back in our rightful place at the top of the podium next year to finish off our St Thomas’ Theatresports journey. Next year we also want to grow Theatresports and have a junior team to bring it back to life throughout the school. We know that we at St Thomas of Canterbury can create a strong legacy within the High School Theatresports world once again. Special thanks to our coach Mrs Gaffaney. We wouldn't be here without you, and we hope to take your hard work and dedication to the Finals next year.

Xavier Anisy