For art forms such as theater that revolve around interpersonal connection, social distancing is difficult.
To address these challenges, Chandler high school speech and drama teacher Inda Jo Conway resurrected Chandler’s speech and debate team.
“We haven’t been able to do our normal season, which would be live performances for an audience,” Conway said. “And so, I had to do something to keep the kids engaged, and I have a group of kids this year that just are really competitive by nature, you know, and so this year was a good time to do, I guess, oh, tip our feet back into the pool of competitive speech.”
This years’ speech and debate events were held primarily virtually in order to facilitate social distancing, with students pre-recording their speeches or monologues and submitting the videos online. “it was kind of a win-win for us,” Conway said. “We could still work on their craft and compete, but we weren’t breaking any of our COVID protocols.”
This school year— Chandler speech and debate’s first year back—all seven speech and debate entries from Chandler High School advanced to regionals and one student, Chelsea Morris, advanced to state semifinals.
“That was the cherry on top,” Conway said. “We were hoping to get someone to make it to regionals.
“And we, you know, we got everyone to regionals, and that we actually had someone make it to state, we were all super excited.”
Seventeen-year-old junior student Chelsea Morris competed in the 4A monologues category, performing a comedic selection from “Goodbye Charles” by Gabriel Davis, and then a dramatic one from “The Monster” by Joseph Arnone.
“It was definitely exciting,” Morris said. “I was proud and also nervous. I hadn’t expected to make it to state, let alone the semifinals. I was very happy to hear it.”
Along with competing in the monologue category, Morris competed with acting partner Anna Phillips in the dramatic duet category at the regional level.
Hunter Maza and Grace Myers also competed in the dramatic duet category at regionals.
Chandler High School students Hunter Meza, Grace Myers, Anna Phillips, and Trever Spruill competed in the monologue category at regionals.
For the monologue category, students memorized and performed two contrasting speeches.
“They’re two separate characters,” Conway said, “and within a six minute timeframe, you have to do both of those monologues.”
The students have to rely on their own memory and skill to carry them through both pieces, a challenge that Morris and Chandler high school sophomore Trever Spruill each said they enjoyed.
One benefit of the online format was being able to take an unlimited number of video recordings and then choose the best one, Spruill said.
Despite the solo nature of many of their competition entries, students were still able to meet up to give each other feedback.
“I think we all gave each other support and input and help, like if somebody was nervous about one, we would go and help them and reassure them so I think it’s the bonding between me and my classmates that made it the best thing ever for me,” Morris said.