On Saturday 3rd of November our Year 9 students Sarah Wright, Katie Woodhouse and Mac Durning competed in the Court Theatre's annual Junior Theatresports Competition.

The team was awarded second place in their heat, with an impressive set of scores against a competitive group of teams from other Christchurch schools.

Firstly, teams competed in the 'blind' round. Not knowing which of the games would be pulled from the hat, the Hagley Juniors gave a very solid rendition of a Shared Story with the title "The Giant Weta in New York", about a weta trying to grow as big as he could by eating every insect and pizza in New York, then looking for love and acceptance as he realised he was far bigger than all of his peers. The judges were particularly impressed with the team's pace and equal control of the story.

In Round 2, Hagley chose to perform a "She Said, She Said", in which Katie and Sarah had to alternate between saying lines of dialogue and giving each other stage directions. With the ask-for of "Guidance Counsellor", they began with a good emotional core: a counsellor helping a student through the loss of her cat!

Finally, in the Challenge Round, the team chose to do an Open Scene with their challenge of "a scene featuring an underdog". Hagley opted for an innovative, fourth wall-breaking performance of a dog training video. Great physicality was shown, in particular, by Mac with his portrayal of the put-upon pup. The fact that two of the three members of the team didn't know what an "underdog" was didn't prevent them from pulling in their best score of the afternoon!

This was truly a great showing for some up-and-coming improvisers, who are in a great position to earn even greater results in their second go at the competition as Year 10s next year.