Girl Scout cookie season is here in R-X high school play

The Twin Rivers R-X high school drama club will put on an original production Tuesday night of the play Confessions of Troop 185.

The play, written by drama teacher Joshua Hancock and co-directed by middle school drama teacher Whitney Edington, follows the story of Girl Scout troop 185 during cookie season.

The troop has never been successful selling cookies before and their troop leader Kent sets up a competition to see who can sell the most boxes. They’re also competing against the local Boy Scout troop, which is in their popcorn season.

Hancock wrote the script with Edington’s help after casting in the end of August.

Going in, they had an idea of the story they wanted to tell, but waited to finish the full script until they could get an idea of the personalities of the students they cast.

Edington has put on productions that way in the past and when Hancock took over the high school drama club four years ago thought it was a good idea to continue.

“Sometimes you want to make sure they’re going to fit into a part,” Hancock said.

Sometimes the character fits the student’s personality and in some cases, the two tried to give them an opposite role that would be more challenging.

“Once we knew who we had, we went ‘well this girl would be funny as a debbie downer,’” Edington said. “I’ve done plays before that I didn’t write or I wrote it first and put all this effort into it and then didn’t have anyone to achieve it. It was just a waste of time. I like it better this way and I feel like you can word things more in a way that they can get it out.”

“And play to their strengths,” Hancock agreed.

Edington said part of the challenge has been that all 19 students in the production are also student athletes, which means they’re busy and schedules for rehearsal were working with sports schedules.

This is also the largest group that’s been in a Twin Rivers High School play, Hancock said. However, he said, the students have been good about making sure they’re in attendance for rehearsals and actively participating.

“This is my best group so far of being here when they needed to be,” he said. “Last year, even this, a week ahead of time, we had students who missed for one reason or another. These kids were all here and ready to go.”

This has also become a close and supportive group, the Hancock said. During rehearsals, the others would always be encouraging when somebody was singing.

“When we just started out and we were rehearsing in my classroom, when someone sings they’re all hooping and hollering for each other in my little classroom. They’re still really excited and encouraging to each other,” he said.

The production will be held at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the Qulin Middle School gymnasium, pending weather conditions, Hancock said. Tickets are $3 for adults, $2 for students and free for those six and under.