TheatreMcLean has been rehearsing for VHSL’s Theater One Act competition, which will take place this Saturday, Jan. 20 at Marshall High School.

“Usually we perform under either TheatreMcLean or ITS, the International Thespian Society, but in this [performance], we’re actually just McLean High School competing against the other schools in the region,” said senior Rafik Hanna, who stars in McLean’s One Act performance.

McLean will perform a play called The Cards of Fate at the competition. Rehearsals for the show started in December and continued through January.

“The show is by Ed Monk, who used to be [TheatreMcLean director Philip Reid’s] old teacher,” Hanna said. “Cards of Fate is sort of surreal. It’s about a game show host called Buffy and Cinnamon, his assistant.”

The game show has a twist—the cards that Buffy draws determine the future of the contestants on stage.

“It starts off kind of silly. Someone’s crush rejects them for prom and stuff like that, but towards the end, it gets sort of morbid,” Hanna said. “We see a seven-year-old get diagnosed with a tumor and potentially fatal cancer.”

During the competition, a panel of judges will evaluate each school’s performance.

“They’ll say, ‘McLean High School, your time starts now,’ and then we have 30 minutes from that moment to perform,” Hanna said. “There’s a panel of four or five judges in the very middle who watch it, and they write down what they liked, what they didn’t like and give specific critiques. It’s actually kind of helpful to see what feedback they leave.”