The largest play contest in the world.

Each fall about twelve hundred Texas high schools begin requisite paperwork to enter the University Interscholastic League One-Act Play Competition. In March the competition begins in earnest as part of the UIL Academic Spring Meet. For all schools there is a District competition. For many there is a preliminary competition called Zone. By May, four levels of competition later, forty schools begin the three-day state competition. After those three days, fifteen schools have been identified as first, second, and third place plays in their divisions, essentially saying two-thirds of that fifteen are not as good as the first place plays, yet the UIL asserts "in a well-run one act-play competition there are no losers." This, of course, is total crap. Losers abound even in a perfectly run competition. This year we were losers.

We responded well to the judge's decision, but it was a shock. Even this old twenty-one year veteran had the wind knocked out of him by the decision. In my opinion, this was the best production I've directed in a decade. The students also felt like they had a winning play. Parents that attended the competition thought we certainly would advance. The judge had a different opinion. In a three school Zone, we were the third place Alternate Advancing Play. We stood, we clapped for the first and second plays' coaches, we smiled, thanked the hosts, climbed on our bus and went to dinner, but we felt like losers. I imagine, in spite of our best efforts, we walked like losers, and our vocal inflections sounded like losers. We did not advance to District. In my twenty-one year history, I have advanced lesser plays to Regionals.

The contest was well-run, but we were losers.