Greene County High School has several students that will be competing at the Iowa High School Speech Association State Large Group Contest on Saturday.

Seniors Lucy Vander Linden and Carter Petterson will be doing Musical Theatre with the song “In a Crowd of Thousands” from the musical Anastasia. Petterson tells Raccoon Valley Radio that they chose that song because it is from the same musical that they are both performing later this spring. To get prepared for the district contest last month, Petterson points out that they got help from a few different people for vocal and the physical movement to accompany it.

“Me and Lucy actually take voice lessons at the same person. So we got a few vocal lessons there with and to work on the vocal part, and (High School Vocal Director Dave) Heupel looked at it too. But then also, we have two other teachers here that helped us with the blocking of it all, and basically we just practice whenever we can.” 

Another entry that received a Division I-Rating at the district contest was Group Improv with Vander Linden, Aiden Bardole and Savannah Lansman. Bardole talks about some of the aspects they focus on when they practice going through different situations.

“And that’s kind of the biggest thing we practice is setting up a story and setting up characters that are going to stay through and through up to five minutes that we have to perform. And then just try to make sure that we know and we’re comfortable working with each other, and we’re not going to end up just kind of going in circles. That’s a big problem that improv groups can have and that’s always the worry is that we’re going to end up going in circles and the story doesn’t go anywhere.”    

The final act that qualified was Choral Reading, which Senior Evelyn Snyder explains is about a comedic piece about a girl scout camp and her character doesn’t want to go and is upset until the end. To hear more from the students, listen to today’s Let’s Talk Greene County program on KGRA and online at raccoonvalleyradio.com. According to IHSSA, the entries that move onto the All-State Festival are those that not only receive a Division I-Rating, but are also recommended by the room judges. The full list of the students that are competing on Saturday are listed below.

Choral Reading- Natalie Towers, Evelyn Snyder, London Harris, Becca Anderson, Savannah Lansman, and Olivia Smith

Musical Theatre- Lucy Vander Linden and Carter Petterson

Group Improv- Savannah Lansman, Aden Bardole, Lucy Vander Linden