Lights…Camera…Action and the crowd goes wild. The theatre is where all rising stars shine, but a hidden figure in an actor’s success is the tech crew that you’ll find backstage. The tech crew gives the play the alluring background, the marvelous costumes and the lighting that leaves the crowd in awe.

Recently Bowie’s Tech Theatre crew competed in UIL, a contest where academic, athletic and the fine arts are judged by their performance.

“This competition had two levels to it where you submitted your work to an adjudicator who looked it over and decided who the top finalists are and those top finalists are the ones that advance to state,” tech theatre teacher Mrs.Holloway said.

The tech crew was required to make a model that would make mouths drop.

“We did it as a group where you had to come up with a concept and if you had a good concept, you made good products and if the product is really well, you’ll go through regionals and then they’ll send you on to state,” sophomore Teal Waid said.

The tech theatre students each had a different job for their model, one of them being a makeup design.

“I drew portraits called renderings of what my makeup design would look like, and applied the designs to my models.” sophomore Julia Cabrera said.

An advertisement also had to be made along with the model that would grasp the viewer’s attention.

“I did theatrical design for marketing which is the campaign to get people to see the show which includes the poster, the program, and the budget.” Waid said.

The tech crew was given a prompt that had to tie the play they choose with millennials and they choose an interesting concept.

“The play that we did this year was ‘Into the Woods’ and the prompt that they had to go off of was that they had to gear into the woods towards millennials and all of my students in my class wrote really interesting concepts for that,” said Holloway. “ One concept that made it into state was ‘Time’ and how time drives a millennials day and lives.”

But minor struggles ensued as the project progressed with the fast-paced timing they had to adjust too.

“I think with any project there are struggles. There weren’t too many but I guess deadlines. There’s always a struggle to meet the fast paced part of the competition.” Holloway said.

Settling on one topic for their model was also a hassle.

“It was difficult to settle on a solid concept that made sense but would still turn heads. Luckily, our judge thought our “time” was very clever and loved it,” Cabrera said.

But as the day of UIL came, stress was set aside and fun was put into action.

“It was a lot of fun,” Waid said.”You have one five-minute interview where they talk about your project and give you a critique then you have to wait until the ceremony and during that time you could go see the other concepts.”

The tech crew also learned about the improvements they could make next time they compete for first place.

“Going to state UIL was such an educational experience, we got great critiques and wonderful advice on how to make our designs even better next year,” Cabrera said.

Although they were one of the finalists, they weren’t in the top six.

“Sadly, we did not end up placing in the top six at state. However, we were still one of the top schools in the entire state area, so I’m proud of us regardless,” Cabrera said.

Mrs. Holloway was proud of her students and was impressed with how they achieved a difficult task.

‘I think it was really good for the students to see a design go from just reading a play to actually having a final product that they themselves thought of and created,” Holloway said.

As time flies by, the tech crew hopes to grow larger as a family and win more.

“We’ve actually grown. Last year, we took two people to state and this year there were five people that went to state so hopefully next year we will have more,” Holloway said.