The one act cast’s homegrown play Whirled Piece continued its streak of success when it placed second at the VHSL conference-23 theater competition on Saturday. Being a runner up allows the team to advance to the regional competition, held Nov. 9 at Woodgrove High School in Loudoun County.

The cast members felt like their performance, while not perfect, was one of their strongest runs.

“I thought the acting and the flow was the best it had ever been. The tech stuff was less than stellar, but it turned out okay,” sophomore Jaymie Inouye said.

Seniors Lillian Poirot and Deb Halpern have been in the cast for four years, and have previous district competitions to compare to, the most memorable being last year’s district win.

“Even though I’m pleased because we get to go to regionals, I’m slightly disappointed we didn’t win first. At least now we have time to improve before regionals,” Poirot said,

Halpern felt that while she wasn’t too confident in her performance, everyone in the cast really pulled their weight when it came to show time.

“Sometimes you perform and you feel like you’ve left everything on the stage, and this wasn’t one of those times [for me], which sucked, but everyone else had that day and that was enough,” Halpern said.

Whirled Piece took second place out of six schools. Although there was some basic disappointment that their one act didn’t receive first place, the cast and crew were satisfied with the second place rating.

“I’m okay with [second place]. We advanced and right now, that’s all that matters,” Halpern said. She feels confident that Whirled Piece will be more successful at regionals.

This was the first year junior Eddie Mestre has been involved in a one act competition. He plans to also participate next year. Like Halpern, he is pleased to move on to regionals.

“I didn’t really care if we got first or second as long as we move on,” Mestre said.

Coming in as a freshman, this was Genevieve Cowardin’s first one act competition as well.

“[During the performance] I was really nervous that we weren’t going to make it under time,” Cowardin said. VHSL restricts performance time to 35 minutes and the HHS one act cast completed their show at 34:29. Cowardin was also skeptical of whether Whirled Piece would advance.

The cast’s sights are now set on the Virginia Theatre Association conference in Reston, VA on Friday Oct. 25.