Troupe Highlight: Troupe 3376 (Midland)

Since its creation, Midland High School theater has had a whirlwind history. From hosting Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash to back-to-back state appearances after 40 years of not seeing the UIL state stage, there has not been a dull moment in troop 3376’s lifetime. While those significant events are major parts of the history of our stage, they are only part of what makes our community a whole.

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Fall of 2021 was a hectic time for everyone; coming back to our auditorium felt like we had stepped into a time machine and returned to the beginning of the year. Everything from our Varsity OAP show, Suite Surrender (Michael McKeever), was left where it had been after returning home and unpacking from our district performance. Although it made us sad to see what could’ve been with Suite Surrender, we were not disheartened. We immediately got back into the swing of things and started working on our next endeavors. Many people participated in TFA events and State Festival, but the item everyone was looking forward to was OAP season. Not getting to put on a show for the fall season made everyone even more excited to work on our one act, The Old Man and The Old Moon (PigPen Theatre Co.). The Old Man and The Old Moon, or TOMATOM for short, was truly the best show for the company of people we had that year. Every person put their all into the play, and we were thankfully able to show that at state. 

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After a year of success, everyone was nervous about returning without the 12 seniors who led us along the way. We started our season with Puffs (Matt Cox), which was a massive hit amongst the fellow students of Midland High, selling 700+ tickets for our school performance alone! After Puffs, we decided to step it up and fly an actor or two with our rendition of A Texas Christmas Carol (Barry Smoot). Seeing and feeling an audience's reaction to our Scrooge being “hanged” was an experience I will never forget, but it only made us hungrier. What were we going to do for our next show? Bowl for hussies? Break chairs? Make a slide from a unit set??? Well, if you said yes to all of that, you'd be correct! If I had to describe The Beggar’s Opera (John Gay) in three words, it would be “over the top.” Doing this show was an experience like no other because, to quote John Gay himself, we did “push this play as far as it will go,” and that was all the way back to the State stage.

While the Midland High School drama dawgs may be a small, eclectic group of people way out in the middle of the west, we have done more than proved ourselves as top dawgs. Pups up Midland High!

-Marisa Berrones