Nelson County has Virginia's top thespians

The first words out of the mouths of 19 Nelson County High School juniors and seniors when they heard their name called for the state championships at the Virginia High School League One Act Theatre Arts Festival last Monday: “Whooohooo!”

“We screamed,” Nathan Bird, 18, said. Bird, who plays one of the main characters in the play titled “Tuna Fish Eulogy,” caught the announcement and following chaos on the video camera on his cell phone.

“We all started running onto the stage, acting hysterical,” Katherine James, 17, said. “There are pictures of us afterward with tears running down our faces.”

This is the first time in Nelson County High School history that the drama department has brought home a state championship from the festival, said Diana Driver, the school’s theater teacher.

The students competed against eight other schools for the top honors. Nelson County High School also took first place in the regional competition and second in the district competition earlier this year.

Driver said it felt “amazing” to win and credited the students’ work.

“This group never wanted to stop rehearsing,” Driver said. “After sports practices, we’d be rehearsing from 6 until 8 at night, after everything else. We’d come in on the weekends for three hours on weekends.”

“I’ve always had talented kids, I’ve always had fantastic kids, but this group — there was never a day that they didn’t want to do it.”

Driver and the students selected the one-act play. It is a ladder play, meaning that certain lines are spoken by different actors simultaneously.

“It’s different,” Driver said of the play. “This is not the play that I would have picked. It made me really nervous when we did. The timing has to be exact.”

The original “Tuna Fish Eulogy” was written for only four actors, but Driver and the students turned it into a play that held parts for 15 actors.

The play was written by playwright Lindsay Price and explores the tragedy and circumstances surrounding the death of a young boy, Albert.

Bird and Dan Dennis, 16, both play Albert, Dennis at age 12, when he died, and Bird at age 24. Nicole Shumate, 17, plays Albert’s mom. Hannah Lilley, 18 and Katie Wood, 16, also share the role of Cherry, Albert’s babysitter.

Other students include: Megan Robles, Katlin Ashley, Bradley Carter, Yusef Kerl, Taylor Goff, Tye Saunders, Katherine James, Fiona Jones, Ben Spitler, Danyelle Phillips, Meg Linen, John Whalen, Annie Saunders and Sami Cunningham.

The Nelson County School Board will provide $100 to each student to purchase state championship rings, but the students will be performing “Tuna Fish Eulogy” as a fundraiser on at 7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 17, at the Hamner Theater at the Rockfish Valley Community Center.

Tickets are $7. For more information, call (434) 361-1999.