State Tournament

The kids and I went to watch the State DI tournament at UTD this morning. We saw three different versions of the Round About Courage challenge that Sheela's team did. The first team portrayed a gang kid, his gang friend's, his consience, the class whimp and a basketball coach. The kid had to straighten out his life before he wasted it forever. The syory line was okay, but I loved their props. They used three metal trash cans which they hid in between scenes. Mounted around the edges of the cans they'd hung retractable window shades that they could unroll to show different scenes.

The second skit was about saving the rainforest. They did a ton of research on medicines, animals and the impact of clear cutting. Their primary prop was an outdoor patio umbrella covered in leaves and hung with animals, bugs, snakes and flowers. They were on pullies across the top so that they could raise and lower them at different times.

The third team was the first place time from our region. Their props weren't as elaborate and their story line a little bit like Friends rip-off. But it was very funny. The setting was Paris, the future bride was afraid of heights and her boyfriend was trying to take her to the top of "DI fell" tower in order to propose. They even managed to go skiing.

The only other challenge we saw was an improve skit. The team researched six different countries at three different time periods. Then 30 minutes before show time they drew cards telling them which three countries (Greece, China and Mexico) at which time periods they needed to incorporate in to their skit. They also drew a card indicating an improve "device" to be incorporated (silent improve), which three senses needed to be included and a prop they needed to build (magic wand) based on materials at hand (cardboard, paperbags, tape, twine and feathers). One minute prior to the show they drew another card listing another element (a postcard from friend) to incorporate. They set the scene in a girl's bedroom. She was upset because her friend (from the postcard) was seeing new places and she didn't get to travel. She invented a toy that transformed her other toys in to "portals" to their country of origin. I told you portals are very common for this generation.