Theater students and the directors are annoyed after a year that some describe as unlucky. Raider Theatre began the year with the Children’s show Beauty and the Beast with few problems, but every show after, along with most theater activities, have been inconvenienced in some way.

“It was really bad actually,” theatre secretary junior Vivian Akanno said. “The weather had delayed Chicago, and because of that some actors got pulled from the show because they had their schedules worked around the past dates and couldn’t make the new ones.”

Due to the delays, lead actress junior Cori Clark and sophomore Jacob Hopfer were some of the students who missed the new performance date of Chicago because Clark moved away and Hopfer had to attend a wedding. The play Rumors was delayed as well after a second ice storm that occured in the winter. This caused more problems with rehearsals, budget, and Patty Granville competition eligibility.

“It’s the cost factors that hurt us,” Director Nancy Gibson said.

The Chicago delay caused its rehearsal times to overlap with those of Rumors’, and then the Rumors’ delay caused an overlap of rehearsals with the UIL play. The delays also caused a problem with Raider Theatre’s budget. The piano player hired for the original performance of the  Chicago performance needed to be replaced but was still paid a thousand dollars for his services, and then another thousand was spent for the new pianist. Additionally, new wood was also required to build the set of Rumors because the wood from the Chicago set was still needed and could not be recycled.

“Now we had to pull ourselves from Patty [Granville] competition because [the new lead] was hired to perform, and didn’t actually go to our school,” Akanno said.

Alumna Nikki McDonald was hired to perform as lead, which broke Patty Granville regulations, eliminating Raider Theater from that category. Theater plans to end their headaches with their UIL play, in the Middle of Grand Central Station.