As their final movement, Dramakats take the stage again on Wednesday, March 20 for their final performance of their UIL piece, Amadeus, the thrilling story of Salieri’s destruction of Amadeus Mozart. Over the course of their UIL competition season, a few seniors were lucky enough to take home awards, showing the prowess of the high school theater program as well as their own abilities. 

Best performer is an award afforded to just two students at every UIL competition. Willis has had actors receive the award before, but never twice in a row. Aiden Hamilton was lucky enough to break that record. 

“I won best performer twice in a row, first round and second round,” Hamilton said. “That means that out of the entire contest, me and one other performer gave the best performances, and that was a record for Willis. We’ve never had two best performances in a row.”

This was an inspiring moment for Hamilton and one he hopes his directors will be able to look back on fondly, particularly because of the environment they cultivated along the way. 

“At the end of the day, Ms. Matlock and the whole theater department get to look back and say. these groups are awesome and this department creates a great environment for friendship and family,” Hamilton said. “Even though we haven’t gotten past the second round, it gives us the inspiration for them to do it in the future.” 

But the awards weren’t just for actors, people behind the scenes were recognized and had the opportunity to take home plaques as well. They showed how competent they were on stage at competition and their plan for the last show is to continue business as usual. 

“In the first round of competition, my whole crew won best crew and the second round I won best technician,” senior Ean Cowger said. “This was the first year Willis has ever won best crew. We were very professional and knew what we were doing. And tonight I’m just planning to sit back and let my crew do their thing” 

UIL also gave the students who work designing lights for shows a chance to shine. All the effort they put in was illuminated with the honors they received. 

“I won best technician first round, and I was part of the crew that won all-star crew,” senior Calya Berlin said. “Your directors pick your best technician awards, so my directors were able to see that I was putting in effort and worked really hard.”

The work behind the scenes all contributes to the bigger picture of a show, and the recognition Berlin received has shown how hard work does not go unrewarded. At their final show, she plans to add a few special effects with lights that they weren’t allowed to implement during competition. 

“[The award] shows that it’s not really pointless, and there’s that sense of growth and community, and your work will be seen if you put all you have into it,” Berlin said. “I know personally as the lighting technician there’s going to be a lot going on with me that’s going to be changing, like with flashing lights, more colors, everything.”

One of the actors this year, who was new to the theater UIL experience, took home an award herself, showing that all the efforts she put towards her craft were worthwhile.

“This is my first time I’ve acted in UIL and got honorable mention and best performer,” senior Breanna Keelan said. “It shows that all of the hours and hard work that I put in, it’s paid off. Somebody outside of my cast, outside of my district, that has seen thousands of plays and actors, thought that I did amazing on stage.” 

The show they put on this year wasn’t just for their school, it was for their community at large, and Keelan dedicated a lot of effort towards bringing life to the character she embodied. 

“The amount of effort we put in as a group to produce a beautiful play and the hours that the directors put into it wasn’t just for our parents, it was for our community and other regions,” Keelan said. “I think I showed them different techniques and approaches that you can take on any character. A character is good in the way that you interpret it and if they saw the show they’d see the life i put into it. We took what we had as a base so we can give the community the best version of Amadeus before it goes away.”

Despite their successes, the show had a rough start, as an incident with the lead forced senior Stephen Brown to swiftly adapt and fill the role. But through hard work and ample support from the rest of the cast, they were able to prevail. 

“I won all-star cast in both of our first two rounds,” Stephen Brown said. “There was a big situation that occurred with our play where we lost our lead, so I was forced to fill that role. I had about a week in between getting that part and our second competition, so it kind of just shows the strength of our cast to be able to build someone up who didn’t know that role and just mold someone into a position where it’s good enough to win an award.”

This finale isn’t just going to be a repeat of the original, it allows the actors to do the show without all the stress of being judged. They get to let loose and show the audience how they interpret Amadeus. 

“It’s a lot less stress, so it’s going to be more fun and more loose,” Brown said. “It’s not going to be like we have to make a certain time or make it perfect, but more so, letting us tell our story, our way, take time when we didn’t have time, do what we want to do, and give the audience a true story.”