Kickstart Your Weekend: 'The Show Must Go On'

There's no drama like high school drama – except maybe high school drama drama. And one documentary, The Show Must Go On, seeks to capture it all through the lens of the annual UIL One-Act Play competition.

For those unfamiliar, OAP is essentially the March Madness of high school theatre. Schools across the state prep a 40-minute play with seven minutes to set and strike the stage, no more than two dozen kids between the cast and crew and alternates, and a preset light plot and a universal bare-bones set. They advance through levels of competition from zone and region on through to state, when the top eight convene here in Austin to determine who's the top in Texas.

(As a technical theatre geek in high school (hi, lighting and fly crews!), I got to watch and participate in more than a few of these competitions, so trust me when I say it's serious business.)

Now, Austin filmmaker Landry Gideon is trying to put together a documentary called The Show Must Go On to chronicle some of the troupes' paths to state. The documentary earned an AFS Grant (then the Texas Filmmakers' Production Fund) in 2012 but he's turned to Kickstarter to help fund travel expenses, additional cinematographers, and more.

Check out his Kickstarter pitch below, and see if you can contribute. As of this writing, they'd gotten 10% of their goal, but they have 18 more days to make a dent in their $15,000 goal. After all, the show must go on.

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For more on the Kickstart Your Weekend series, visit our first post from last week. Got a project you think we should spotlight? Email tips to [email protected].