Jack Yates Drama wins UIL One Act Play at Regional Competition

“Girls, if the soul of our nation is to be saved, I imagine that it’s essential to develop into its soul.”

– Coretta Scott King

Jack Yates Excessive College has an extended historical past of competitors excellence, so it was no shock when their drama ensemble emerged to beat 241 faculties to be within the prime ten p.c of UIL competing faculties to earn a spot on the UIL Regional One Act Play Competitors. Dr. Margo Hickman, Jack Yates Award Successful Theater Educator and Director, was the guiding drive to instruct, practice, and empower her small however highly effective solid and crew of eight college students to realize this wonderful accomplishment. Dr. Hickman selected A Track for Coretta by World Famend Playwright Pearl Cleage.

A Track for Coretta is ready on February 6, 2006, when folks started lining up at daybreak exterior of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church to pay their respects to the late Mrs. Coretta Scott King, widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It was a unprecedented expertise for her college students to journey again in time by means of this play to actually embody the spirit of our ancestors in such a method that touched everybody’s hearts, who noticed their efficiency and reminded us of the significance of preserving and celebrating our cultural historical past.

Dr. Margo Hickman is a dynamic, devoted, and distinctive advocate for arts schooling and makes use of her platform to combat for artwork applications in public faculties throughout Texas. She is a Texas Instructional Theatre Affiliation member, the chair for fairness, range, inclusion, and accessibility, the Black Educators Theatre Caucus, the American Alliance of Theater and Training, and Theatre for Younger Audiences. She had a younger solid and crew of 5 freshmen, one sophomore, one junior, and one senior. When requested what was the perfect a part of this expertise? She responded, “The relationships that college students made with different college students from different faculties. My Fellow Yates workers grew to become part of our manufacturing crew, particularly Nurse Terri Collins, a real Assistant Director. The devoted staff members are Quanda Thomas-Guillory and Alecia Richmond.”

In a time the place Republican political leaders try to erase and devalue African American Historical past, this accomplishment by Jack Yates drama program ought to be celebrated and supported. 1881 HBCU Blue Legacy was excited to attach their mentor college, Jack Yates’s drama division with world famend playwright Pearl Cleage, so their award-winning college students may ask the playwright questions on her play. The scholars have been excited and so grateful to Pearl Cleage for being keen to talk with Jack Yates college students by way of Zoom.

Congratulations Jack Yates Lions Drama Ensemble and Dr. Margo Hickman on a job properly accomplished. They didn’t advance to the U.I.L. One Act Play State Competitors, however they left the whole lot that they had on stage and made Coretta Scott King and all our ancestors smile from Heaven with nice pleasure. Many occasions, reveals with particular results and fluff overshadow the true goal of the UIL One Act Play Competitors, which is to showcase the Excessive-Stage Performing Capability, Technical Theater Excellence, and depth of storytelling. That’s what Dr. Margo Hickman and Jack Yates Drama Ensemble captured of their efficiency of A Track for Coretta. If you need to help the Jack Yates Drama division, please contact their wonderful Principal, Tiffany Guillory. Our college students need to have the perfect sources to proceed to do wonderful work. I hope you’ll donate to assist these college students proceed to be extraordinary.