Bob Jones Drama Fest on Nov. 6 to preview 2014 competitors

Bob Jones Drama Fest on Nov. 6 at 6:30 p.m. will feature individual and ensemble acts, along with the cast of this year’s one-act play, “Standard Deviation,” shown in the photo. Drama Fest is a precursor to district theatre competition. (CONTRIBUTED)

MADISON – The 2014 Bob Jones Drama Fest on Nov. 6 will preview this year’s competition pieces by the high school’s award-winning theatre department.

Performances will start at 6:30 p.m. in Zompa Auditorium. Tickets are $5.

“Drama Fest is an opportunity for students in drama at Bob Jones to showcase their talents for the community,” drama teacher Dwayne Craft said. “These students bring so much to their performances. We want to provide the community with an opportunity to be entertained and enjoy some of the best theatre in the state.”

In addition, Drama Fest benefits as a ‘dress rehearsal’ before students compete in the district festival for Alabama Conference of Theatre at James Clemens High School on Nov. 7-8. Bob Jones will compete in classical and contemporary monologues and duets, pantomime, readers’ theatre and the one-act play festival.

More than 100 individual students have entered 36-plus events. “One of the great things about Bob Jones is that we fully enter most events. That means we enter the maximum number of student performers allowed per event,” Craft said.

District winners will advance to the annual Walter Trumbauer State Festival on Dec. 4-6 at Troy University.

Mary Davis also teaches theatre courses at Bob Jones.

“The arts are one quality that sets Madison City Schools apart from the rest of the state,” Craft said. “For the arts to thrive in our community, everyone (must) be involved, whether as performer or audience member.”

“Standard Deviation” is Bob Jones’ 2014 one-act play, “an alternate history, love story, and tale of regret,” Craft said. “It is set in a dystopian world where Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine, the first mechanical computer, was actually constructed in 1822.”

However, this society develops by determining people’s lives by their probability for success.

Kayla Peel portrays Ada Lovelace, the first computer programmer. As romantic female lead, Emeline Earman plays Jeeter Dahlia. Chris Gunner is cast as romantic juvenile male. Chance Novalis portrays Charles Babbage.

For more information, call 256-772-2547.