On October 24th One Act went to PCO to perform 26 Pebbles for their state competition.

Because this is a controversial subject, director Morgan Russell was wary to take on this piece. When asked why she chose this play she explained that, “It was tough for me to decide [on] a play, especially it being my first one here at Norman north, but I felt so tied to this story and what it meant. Also because the issue of gun violence in schools is relevant, and I debated personally on whether or not I should do a play, that is, you know, that could be considered controversial because it’s a serious issue. And I honestly had to grapple with whether or not we could handle it. But ultimately, I got to know the actors and the people in our program here, and it was an issue that genuinely concerned them. And I think whenever you have a real issue like that it’s not beneficial to shy away from it, it’s important that we talk about it because it is something that’s affecting everyone in the country right now, so I think being able to use this as an opportunity not just to show our craft as actors, directors, and technical designers, but to also use it as an opportunity to talk about a story that really matters.” 

Although performing the same piece for regionals and state a lot of things were changed and improved between those performances.  Ahrla Daison, actor, commented on this saying, “We took in a lot of the blocking ideas that the judges gave to us.” Daison said “We did have a note that our set was very linear there was a front and there was a back and nothing else. So we took in the note that we needed to have more people on stage during chaotic scenes, we took more people up to the stage, we let the band down more so it’s a lot more moving with our new blocking.” With this build-up of changes and notes before the performance, technical difficulties also occurred right before the players were to go on. These difficulties were out of North’s control, however, it caused the audience to lose focus on the performance while correcting the technology. This, in turn, caused the One-Act performers to fully captivate the audience with their performance. “I think, first we were all like a little shocked and added to the panic” performer Raegan Pratt said, “but after a while it helps us to be able to calm down and talk to each other.” Even though One-Act didn’t conquer state, in the author’s opinion, they brought an important message to the stage and performed it beautifully. In Ellie Riesland’s, actors, words she hoped that the audience took away “that even though this was a tragedy, we can still learn positive things from it. And there’s always something to learn from anything bad that happens we can always explore more things, find different solutions, and just become better people.”