CFHS students create speedy performance in 24 hours

Sophomore Grace Gubbrud, seniors Ellen Wallingford and Kyle Wiebers and CFHS alum Jillian Ross with their group after their performance.

Playwrights typically spend weeks or months writing and perfecting their plays. They work to make every detail perfect for their audience’s enjoyment, but what if they only had 24 hours to make their plays satisfactory? A group of CFHS students faced this challenge when they performed in a Speed Theater event on Saturday night, Feb. 15.

For $10, anyone was able to see this crazily thrown together performance at the Walker Building across from the Waterloo Community Playhouse. Several CFHS students participated including sophomores Grace Gubbrud and Katarina Walther, junior John Nicol and seniors Kyle Wiebers and Ellen Wallingford. CFHS alum Jillian Ross also participated.

In Speed Theater, participants are divided into teams of six to eight people. Each team draws a song title from a list of songs and must, within 24 hours, create a play that lasts under 12 minutes and that is related to the song. The theme of the plays for this performance was “Friends and Lovers.”

The performances were judged by local celebrities Andrea Dryer, who is a justice at Black Hawk County Courthouse, and John Luzaieh from the Oster Regent Theater.

At the end of the performance, several CFHS students won awards. The group that included Grace Gubbrud, Ellen Wallingford and Kyle Wiebers won Best Original Script. Wiebers won Best Actor. John Nicol’s group won Best Use of “Speed” in Speed Theater.