Harlem High more than 1-act wonder

The Harlem High School drama troupe ran all the way to a state championship earlier this month.

The club defeated eight other schools to win the state AAA one-act play championship held in Norcross, Ga., on Nov. 12 with their performance of the British farce See How They Run.

They won the Region 3-AAA championship Oct. 28 with the same play to qualify for the state final.

"It's a great feeling," Harlem High drama teacher and play director Roy Lewis said. "This particular win was really nice since we had been to the state finals last year and we didn't place. It was nice we were able to come back and win."

The win marked the third time in Lewis' 22-year career at Harlem High that his drama students won the one-act championship, Georgia's biggest annual drama competition, he said.

Only two of the play's nine cast members had any previous stage experience with Harlem High, Lewis said.

"Seven of the kids were learning from the bottom up," he said. "It was a great accomplishment for us to achieve our goal and, at the same time, it was a great learning experience for us."

Although none of the cast members won individual acting honors, those awards are secondary to the overall competition, Lewis said.

"The others are just icing on the cake," Lewis said of the individual acting awards. "They're nice to give recognition to those young folks who stood out, but the big one is the overall winner, and that's who we were."