The Habersham Central High School Stage Raiders recently traveled to Kingsland, Georgia, to compete at the Georgia Theatre Conference. They walked away with several major awards. Ansley Broome and Nolan Penick won Best Actress and Best Actor awards and the troupe had the highest-ranking show at the conference.
“This is my fifth time taking a group to this conference,” says Stage Raiders Director Jeremy Bishop. “Although we’ve done well for ourselves in the past, we had never placed before. I knew we had done well this time, but I always tell the kids it’s really not about awards, but presenting outstanding theatre.”
And that, they did.
On Thursday, October 13, the Stage Raiders performed Tuesdays & Sundays, by Daniel Arnold and Medina Hahn. The play tells the true story of William and Mary, two young people who lived in 1887 in Margate, Canada. After meeting at a New Year’s party, the couple quickly becomes enamored of each other. But love turns to shame and rejection, and the play culminates in a shocking turn of events that shatters their lives.
“It’s a heavy story, but a very human one, very true to life,” says Bishop. “I had been wanting to do this play for several years but didn’t quite have the right cast for it. This year, that changed.”
Broome and Penick starred in the One Act play and never left the stage once.
When asked about the performance, Nolan described it as “Thrilling! I don’t mean our performance, I mean the reaction of the crowd. No one had ever heard of this play before, and immediately, they were right there with us, following every twist and turn, laughing, gasping, even crying.”
After the performance, the cast received verbal feedback from the judges. Afterward, Bishop says the actors were “swarmed” by an appreciative audience.
Broome was surprised by the response.
“We were instant celebrities. The rest of the conference, everywhere we went we heard people whisper ‘that’s the group that did Tuesdays & Sundays!’ People would stop me everywhere I went for pictures with us, or to ask us for our Instagram handle,” she says.
“It was such a surreal moment,” says Bishop. “I couldn’t have been prouder.”
The show will compete again at the Region GHSA One Act Competition. The Stage Raiders will perform a home showing of their One Act play once competition ends.
