By: Chloe Heller –
Southeast has an impressive number of talented actors in the theatre department, and sadly, somehow many go unnoticed. In theater’s most recent production, the One Act, four freshman appeared on stage, and two in the crew. One of those was Deanna Lyons.
In the play, called ‘Crimes at the Old Brewery’, Lyons was one of the characters in the “Committee of the Suppression of Crime and Vice”. The audition process was rigorous, says Lyons. “There were tryouts and then there were callbacks, which I made, and that’s way longer… (tryouts was) mainly reading scripts.”
Being one of four freshman in the cast, you would expect Lyons and the other three to be intimidated, but she says the upperclassmen were very welcoming and warmly brought her in right off the bat.
Saturday, the crew traveled to Gretna where they competed in districts. Besides Southeast and the host team Gretna, the district included the high schools of Elkhorn, Omaha Bryan, Beatrice, Crete, North Platte, and Alliance. Gretna came in first, but the Knights finished a close second right in front of North Platte High School.
Overall, Lyons had a great time being apart of the One Act cast. One of her favorite parts was preparation. “Like an hour before the show you’ll see people getting into character. During the play half the people are walking backstage as their character, it’s pretty awesome.”
She has her own preparation technique as well, “I mostly just try to create a story. Sometimes I talk to myself like my character is talking to another character.”