“There are two teams that constantly win state championships at this school: the girls’ tennis team and us” are the famous words of Kim Hill, the one act director. For the past two years, the Mayo Stage Door One Act team has gone to state. This year the team put on the Chips Are Down by Don Zolidis, which takes place during the 1950s red scare, and centers the perfect 1950s girl. Rachile is asked to spy on her favorite teacher, Mr. Lawson, as the principal suspects he may be a communist. Through the play she struggles with deciding what she should do.
The cast gets in to character during an intense scene (l-r) Mrs. Turnbull (Nora Fong), Jacqulyn (Zsuzsa Baumann), Molly (Teagan Brown), Rachel (Syd Brown), Dot (Maeva Djossou), and principal Mr. Horace Brown (Andrew Poch).
There are many different things that One Act judges score the play on; sometimes their critiques can seem especially picky. Several of the judges were very particular about making sure the costumes and the make up matched the era of the play. The team even got a flag with only 48 stars to represent the 48 states that existed at the time. When the costume crew couldn’t find skirts that fit with the time period, they resorted to making them by hand.
Part of one act is that there are many rules to make it a level playing field for all the teams. Some rules are easy to work with, like only having six lighting zones. Others are harder, like the 35-minute time limit. For this show the team needed to keep a close eye on the time, but for Mayo the main rule that they struggled with the most was the maximum of 20 people cast and crew. Mrs. Hill told everyone at auditions how she was limited on the number of people she could cast. The selection process was challenging; if this were any other school, everyone who tried out would have been cast, but the wealth of talent at Mayo is just too deep. One way that the team dealt with this is by letting people be non-cast understudies or volunteers. These people are not allowed to help at the competitions but still go with the team and are tasked with watching the other shows to report to the team how they are.
Mayo’s 2025 One Act team are (l-r) front row: Katarina Larsen, Will Sanchez, Mesa O’Byrne, Erin Olson, Elizabeth Pomerleau , Meg Pomerleau, Aid Ondler, Brooklyn Pagel, Bela Verma; back row: Maeva Djossou, Andrew Poch, Teagan Brown, Nora Fong, Maxxine Goihl, Leah Dow, Tate Sansale, Nico Corl, Syd Brown, Sophia Grams, Zsuzsa Baumann, and Mrs. Kim Hill.
One Act is a big commitment, but for many of the cast and crew it’s one of their favorite endeavors each year. As Zsuzsa Baumann says, “I like how close the cast can get and that we all work together.” Other people enjoyed the competitions. Andrew Poch noted that, “the competitions were more funnier than I expected, and everyone was much friendlier than I was expecting, like they’re on the same team.”
Leading up to the Section Tournament, the team was going in with a picket fence from subsections, which means all three judges ranked their play as number one. Unfortunately, the week leading up to the tournament, the team was hit hard by illness, with over half of the cast not being at practice the night before. Despite this the team went on to perform their best run-through, but unfortunately they got second place.
The One Act play for next year has not yet been decided, but the team is very excited about the possible options. Both Andrew Poch and Zsuzsa Baumann mentioned how the team was very freshmen heavy, which is very different from previous years, when there would often be only one freshman. They’re both hopeful that because of all the new talent getting this experience, next year will be better.
If you would like to be a part of this amazing group next year, talk to one of the current members. Auditions will be held in the fall of next school year.
Photos are courtesy of Mayo Yearbook staff.
