This year, Wake Forest played host to the NCTC Nov. 4 and Nov. 5.

North Carolina Theatre Conference (NCTC) is a regional competition where 12 schools compete with a total of 16 plays. Each play has to be 45 minutes start to end, and two shows advance to states.

Wake Forest performed “A Rare Condition” and “Oz.” Although neither advanced, students won many awards.

We achieved praise in both theatrics and set design, including a superior award for “Oz” and “A Rare Condition.” However, some students felt we needed to do more to make the plays better.

“I wish we would’ve had more time to rehearse tech because we never really got the opportunity to run through and fix any issues,” senior Haley Edwards said. “We could’ve done something simpler so we wouldn’t have wasted so much time painting and more time rehearsing.”

Weaver Academy and Cape Fear High School were two schools to advance from our region.

“Weaver Academy’s “Love/Sick” was really good. It was rehearsed, but not too rehearsed. The set was super simple, and that made the show better,” senior Bri Stewart said. “Cape Fear’s “Point of Order” was very practiced and cold. They knew their lines and their tech was good, but it was rehearsed to the point of cold.”

Even though Wake Forest did not advance to states, the students that were involved in NCTC had a lot of fun.

“I enjoyed the friendship and getting closer to people I normally don’t get to be around,” senior Ethan Gunter said.

Even though the conference had its moments of fun, it also came with intense moments.

“I didn’t like the stress,” Stewart said.

A lot of the students watched a lot of the other schools performances, and they all had a favorite.

“I watched a majority of them. My favorite was a play called “This is a Play,”” senior RJ Wright said.

Other students had varied opinions on which play they enjoyed the most.

“My favorite was “Nine Worst Break-ups,”” junior Emily Granholm said.

Students in the technical theatre program also played a role during NCTC.

Edwards was the stage manager, while senior Quintin Rossman ran the soundboard and senior Teegan Krieger and junior Alexandra Cazin ran the light board.

Different students also had different responses when they were asked how much preparation they had before this event.

“Actors had two weeks, and tech, which was what I was, had four days,” Krieger said.

The short time restraint made it difficult to prepare for the shows. Edwards believed that a simpler set could’ve made it easier on the cast and crew.

“Though I take an enormous amount of pride in our tech department, and how much work we put into it, if we had a simpler set of maybe only a table and two chairs, it would propose a challenge to both the actors and tech,” Edwards said. “Tech would have to find a way to make it creative so the audience doesn’t get bored with what they’re looking at, while the actors wouldn’t have much of a set to build off of, so their challenge would be to keep the audience interested. It would show that an extravagant set isn’t necessary to have a good show.”