It’s the moment you’ve been waiting for all weekend. You’re sitting in a crowd of drama students from across the state, waiting to hear if your team placed in the state competition. Hand in hand with your teammates, your stomach doing somersaults, you wait for the verdict. Suddenly you hear the magic words announced, “And the 1st place, 4A winner of this year’s Wyoming State Drama Competition is…Cheyenne East High School!”

The Wyoming State Drama Competition is a three-day festival in which schools from across the state face off in multiple technical and performance events in hopes of winning a state title. Performance events give teams a chance to showcase their teamwork as well as their individual skills in the fields of acting or technical work. Performance events include full shows, monologues, and duets. Technical events give crew members and backstage artists a chance to display their work and skills for the chance to earn their own state titles, whereas technical events include set design, lighting design, costume design, makeup design, and sound design.

“All of us worked really hard for this win,” said Alexandria Rinne, a sophomore at East. “It’s nice to see all of that work pay off.”

East High School dominated this year’s competition, taking first overall in the competition as well as several technical events. East’s exceptional proscenium (a show that takes place on an average stage with a curtain line) show The Exonerated took first in its category and first overall for one act plays. East High placed first in six out of 14 events including: Dramatic Duets, 3rd year Make-Up Design-Real, Original Script-Monologue, 3rd year Costume Design, and 1st year Lighting Design. East also placed in the top three in 11 out of 14 events.

Along with the state title, East also took home another big win in the form of an invitation to represent Wyoming in the International Thespian Festival with its show The Exonerated On June 20-25.

“It feels really good to win at state,” said Shelby Albright, a sophomore at East, “I’m excited for Nationals. It’ll be my first experience with theater outside of Wyoming.”

The Exonerated, directed by Jeff Miller, centers around a group of four people who are connected by their shared experience of being arrested for crimes they didn’t commit. The Exonerated tells the moving story of each of these former inmates from their perspectives and vividly portrays the struggles the inmates faced on their road to exoneration. East High is hoping to take The Exonerated to nationals June 20-25.

“It’s a great honor to be able to go to nationals,” said Brenden Mestas, a senior at East, “I’ve never had this kind of opportunity to represent my school at this level before.”

Even though East’s drama department is busy preparing for nationals, preparations for the spring musical are in full swing. This year’s musical will be The Music Man. Set in 1912, it tells the story of a traveling salesman who tries to scam the citizens of the small town of River City, Iowa, to buy into his idea of a marching band for the town’s children. The ensuing adventure features many elaborate songs and dance numbers accompanied by romance and laugh out loud humor.

“I’ve never been a part of an East High play before,” said Kenzie Merritt,  a sophomore at East. “I’m excited to dive into what that’s like.”

The Music Man will be performed on February 26 and 27, so be sure not to miss it!