Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 8, 1995 TAG: 9503080087
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-12 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DUBLIN LENGTH: Medium
The public will get a chance to see the award-winning performers at a newly scheduled performance at 7 p.m. Friday in the school's Little Theatre. Admission is $4 for adults, and whatever parents choose to pay for children.
The school's theater troupe has consistently won top district and state awards and been second or third at the state level for several years.
This time, they not only won first place but three of the students - Chase Loney, April Owens and Matt Hancock - were among seven from about 170 statewide performers chosen for acting awards.
One of the three judges at Monday's competition gave the overall performance a perfect score, which is rare at the state level. Drama teacher Rhonda Welsh received 89 out of a possible 90 points for her direction.
The judges who rated her work on the play so highly had no idea how much she really worked on it. Two minutes before the performance was to start, a solder connection broke on the troupe's sound board. Welsh found it just in time to physically hold the connection together, which she had to continue doing for the entire 30 minutes of the play.
She had to lean across a table to reach it, and then could not move during the show for fear she would lose the connection.
``It was not a very dignified position,'' she said. ``My hand cramped up ... then my arm cramped, then my leg cramped and my foot cramped under me.''
When she received the trophy, Rhea Saltz - one of the chaperones making the trip - said she must be nervous because her hand was trembling. That was the hand she had been using to hold the connection, she said. ``My other hand was fine.''
Because of that, she did not get to see her students in their top state performance.
``I don't know how the show went,'' she said. ``It must have gone pretty well, though.''
Welsh was not at school to hear any congratulations Tuesday. That was one of the five days of suspension she was ordered to serve for objecting loudly, during an earlier drama field trip, when she believed a motel staff member was shortchanging her students on doughnuts in a continental breakfast.
Welsh originally received a 10-day suspension. She appealed that to the School Board which reduced it to five days.
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