It’s not all that often that someone finds themselves sitting in an airport arguing with strangers about luggage and their childhood, but that’s exactly how Dartmouth High School Theatre’s performance proceeded during the preliminary round of the Massachusetts Educational Theater Guild’s 2024 High School Drama Festival held Saturday, March 2. 

Now, the kids who brought the play, “The Layover” by Tracy Wells, to life will be taking their terminal to the semifinals. The play explores themes of death as the show’s main character grapples with understanding herself, her parents and others.

This festival is held annually by the guild in order to allow theater students the chance to show off their talents and compete against over 90 schools across the state. The plays are entirely student driven; each school receives 10 minutes to set up their productions and 40 minutes for the performance. 

Dartmouth went up against performances of “A Not so Dark and Stormy Night” by Diman Regional Vocational Technical High School, “Radium Girls” by Walpole High School, “Emotional Baggage” by Wareham High School, “The One Act Play That Goes Wrong” by B.M.C. Durfee High School, “Anonymous” by Old Colony Regional Vocational High School and “Icarus” by the competition’s host, Joseph Case High School.

Along with Dartmouth, Joseph Case, B.M.C. Dufree and approximately 40 other schools will be moving onto the semifinals, which are set to take place Saturday, March 9, with tickets at $15. However, a location has not yet been announced. 

Seniors and close friends Haley Cabral and Hadley Fitton were in charge of directing “The Layover,” managing rehearsals, choosing props and putting together the set design. 

Cabral said she believed the play had a powerful message that would resonate with students at the competition.

“Life’s so short and you really do want to make the most of your time,” she said. 

“It’s a lot of fun performing,” said Charlotte French, who plays the lead role of Dana. But especially so with the support of all the other theater students in the audience.

French said she enjoyed watching everyone’s plays and felt Dartmouth’s play not only went “smoothly,” but had the impact the theater group was going for.

“It was a crazy week for us, so it was really nice to pull it all together at the end,” French said. “It was really stressful, but it was a really fun show.”

Lily Duval, who played the character Stephanie, said she had gone to the competition last year and it had been “so fun.” This year was no different. 

“It’s not really about winning or anything,” Duval said, emphasizing how excited she also was to watch the different shows and witness everyone’s talents. 

Tam Heys, the play’s assistant stage manager, was in charge of the fog machine for the production. 

Once all the other actors started to become nervous, Heys said that’s when her nerves began to act up.

 “How fun it was today made it better,” she said. “It made all the nervous jitters balance out.”

Tyler Breault, a sound tech for the production, said a typical play incorporates lots of sound cues to begin with, but there were not as many for this one. 

“It was really interesting and fun to try to come up with all these different sounds to create or just help amplify that feeling of an airport base,” Breault said.

Winners at semifinals will be headed to the state finals on March 21. Only two high schools will be chosen to represent Massachusetts in the New England Drama Festival.