Three students from the school’s Dramatic Interpretation (Interp) team will be

competing at the state TFA competition on March 5-7 in El Paso.

“Interp stands for interpretation of a speech,” junior Ilka Megee said. “It’s

competitive acting in a sense.”

In Interp, one is not allowed the help of any extra items in their performance.

“You take a script of any kind of story and shorten it to 10 minutes, and then, you

tell that story by yourself using no props or anything,” senior Marcus Avila said.

Coach Victoria Williams said the students have put in a significant amount of work.

“They went above and beyond what is normal,” she said. “This was a very different

tournament season, and they did so much.”

Although this is her second time going to state, Megee said she stills views it as a

major accomplishment.

“My partner Alex Roman and I have worked extremely hard to construct our piece,”

Megee said.

Interp is not as easy as some may think, Avila said.

“Memorizing the entire performance is only the beginning,” he said. “The hard part

comes when you have to analyze every character and every line of dialogue all in

hopes of understanding your story from every possible aspect.”

Williams said having the chance to take her students to the state competition makes

her a very proud coach.

“It shows that they cared about something and were willing to work hard to achieve

a goal they wanted,” she said.

The students will be flying to El Paso with Williams on Wednesday.

“We will be joining Mansfield High and their Interp team when we go to compete,”

Williams said.

Although the rest of the team cannot be there with them in El Paso, Avila said they

are still rooting for their teammates.

“Even those of us who aren’t going to state have devoted big parts of our lives to

getting better,” Avila said. “The people who do Interp are very dedicated to being

the best they can be, so we really want our competitors to show out.”