![The cross country team poses for the camera after finishing the district meet. The varsity boys, JV boys and JV girls all placed third and the varsity girls placed fourth. “Coach put in the right training for us for this season, so I think we will be peaking this week and the next couple of weeks,” varsity runner and junior Nathan Kukla said. “The chances of making it to state are very high, but we don’t settle for the lowest and there is always going to be that chance, so [we] race for the best.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Heidi-831-1200x900.jpg)
![Smiling at the camera, Author Ehigbor Okosun, members of Page Turners, and other students reflect on the author's visit. “I thought the visit was great,” Senior Amia De Leon said. “It was interesting talking to her and [getting to know] her process and her thoughts and books in general. But I think the reason it went well [was that] people got to ask questions. I'm glad that she said so much in response to the questions and it wasn't just one and done. [The author’s responses] felt very articulate.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Sebastian-5-1200x800.jpg)
![Standing in front of the field at a freshman football game, cheerleader freshman Jacob Gaudreau along with teammate freshman Bella Gibson pose for a photo during halftime of game. “[Cheer has] definitely given me a much more outgoing personality,” Gaudreau said. “I used to be very introverted, so it's definitely made me more extroverted towards people.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Ingrid-204-1200x800.jpg)
![Holding a wooden pizza toy, senior Taylor Peterson plays with small children in Bucaramanga, Colombia. During the summer, Peterson traveled to Colombia to help build an elementary school that only had two classrooms but five or six grades with one teacher. “We add[ed] two more classrooms,” Peterson said. “It’s kind of hard when you have two or three grades in one classroom and you only have one teacher. It’s very hard to actually get some beneficial learning. [The extra classrooms will give the students] a better quality of education because they’ll actually have a place specific for their learning.” Photo by Taylor Peterson](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Taylor-P.png)
![Swinging with his arm extended, senior Nolan Park hits the ball smoothly over the net and to the opponent’s side. Park is one of four varsity tennis captains and helped the team win district championships. “Winning district champs was a pretty awesome feeling,” Park said. “We had lost to Liberty Hill a couple of weeks before, but when we played them [again], we came out and really took care of business. We took them out and it was just a really awesome night.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Kassidy-419.jpg)
![Standing proud, varsity senior athletes Rafael Escobar, Griffin Jacobs, Jakob Martin, and juniors Jackson Springer and Jack Morris pose with their newly earned medals. The varsity team finished third out of 14 teams on Sept. 25. “The team's primary goal is to win the district championship,” head coach Cody Price said. "We're confident that with our action plan in place, we can accomplish this mission. [For the next tournament], our preparation involves assessing our strengths and weaknesses, celebrating milestones and creating individual development plans." Photo courtesy of Cody Price](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/golf.jpg)
![Smiling at the camera, the Varsity Tennis team celebrates winning districts. They played against Liberty Hill on Tuesday night and won with a final score of 10- 5. “We improved a lot even from the last game,” senior Blake Hillis said. “We lost against them the last time we played [Liberty Hill], but it was really close. It was just really important for us to win this match since it was the district finals. [When we won I felt] overwhelmingly happy, especially being there with my teammates and it being my senior year. It was just really great. It [felt] like a community.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Tennis-Districts-e1728060882260.png)
You enter the Chapel, take your seat, watch the beautiful bride walk down the aisle and see a photographer obnoxiously get in everybody’s way. The theater department’s newest dinner theater takes a twist and invites you to be a part of the show in an exciting way.
The show, happening tomorrow and this weekend, is an immersive experience where audience members play roles as guests at an Italian-American wedding, participating in games, dances and chatting with the fellow attendees and staff.
“It’s a very creative show and allows for a new kind of feeling when acting, and for theater in general; it’s something we don’t get to experience a lot with the regular shows,” junior Jayden Anderson said. “The audience participation is a huge aspect of [the show], and it really helps us as actors get into character. It makes us feel more like we’re talking to a real person, as a different person other than ourselves. It shapes the show itself.”
Tony And Tina’s Wedding is a loosely-scripted show that relies heavily on improv dialogue between guests, while still hitting specific story beats. The actors must always be aware of what is going on, memorize the sequence of events, and communicate with audience members all at the same time.
“I’ve been on the improv troupe for years,” junior Ben Akers said. “I really enjoy improv and I’d like to say that I’m good at it. So, the fact that it is improv means that it’s easier for me to do a good performance. Sometimes I get caught up in the improv, and forget the things that I’m supposed to do, and then we get stuck because I’m distracted.”
Sophomore Abby Davis shares a similar experience, and gives insight into how a new style of improv can be challenging, yet fun.
“Normally in improv you play a character for a short amount of time and then get a new one or make up one, but for this show you are given a thought-out character and have to play them for hours.” Davis said. “I struggled with that at the beginning, but understanding your character and their relationship with everyone makes it easier. I think this style of improv allows you to really play the character and lets you give the character more depth than you would in regular improv comedy.”
While practicing without an audience, the cast finds the rehearsal process to be very helpful in structuring the show, and allows them to come up with many other ideas to incorporate into the story.
“Mainly we try to get the basic guidelines of the show down and just run through that,” senior Seth Loudenslager said. “So hopefully when the show comes around we have the guy like down to where a weekend can, space it out a bit and have more improv into it, you know, mingle with the people longer, but we have that reinforced guidelines where, like, we won’t get too lost while just talking to people.”
Anderson also shares a similar sentiment.
“The rehearsal process is necessary because we need to learn those big, long directions from the script, and we need to practice getting to know each other and interacting in character,” Anderson said. “We went to a dinner the other night, pretending to be our characters. It was a good chance for everyone to get into character and understand what a real family dinner as this family [our characters make up] would be like. This dysfunctional, crazy, family. It was a really fun experience and something I will never forget.”
