The Plains Drama Club earned the opportunity to compete at the national level with their compelling performance of “Our Diamond” at the state-wide Thespian Festival earlier this month.

“I can’t even tell you how exciting it was,” assistant director Cathy Emmett said. “The kids pushed themselves so far that they were just amazing.”

The festival, which took place on Feb. 4 and 5 on the University of Montana’s campus, was an opportunity for local actors to compete against their peers and hone their craft as critiques and workshops were offered in between performances of the 24 high schools attending.  

Although Plains has entered the competition dating back as far as Emmett remembers, this is the firs time they have ever been awarded a birth to compete at nationals.

Plains student Kenny Griggs also brought home an individual award, winning first place in the tongue twister competition.

Plains drama club director Terry Henry took interest in performing “Our Diamond,” after first reading it last spring. Henry quickly realized the play, a dramatic narrative of several Jewish women being held at Auschwitz during World War II, was not a typical high school play.

“We normally do comedies,” Henry said. “When I read that script I just fell in love with it and we had to do it. That’s all there is to it.”

The two directors thought the play offered a unique challenge both artistically and historically as the play is set halfway across the world and takes place nearly seventy years ago.

Both Emmett and Henry credit their cast for putting in extra hours of research on the internet, watching films and reading books about the Holocaust to prepare for their parts. Additionally, the two gave high praise to the show’s student director, Taylor Boles for taking a leadership role during production.

Henry believes her cast was able to take on this difficult play, because of their history together. She cited her seniors as the chief example, since they have been acting in plays together since they were in the eighth grade.

“They buoy each other,” Henry said. “They don’t minimize one another’s parts, or say ‘I have more lines than you, my part is more important.’ They just make each other look good, and that’s a huge thing to make your whole production look good.”

The drama club is currently fundraising to gather the 12,000 dollars they’ll need to make the trip to Nebraska for the national competition on June 20-26.

They will hold a meeting this week to discuss opportunities and dates to raise money, but tentatively plan to continue performing their award winning play to raise support.