By Anna Boratyn
Executive Opinion Editor|
At the meeting held on Nov. 26, of the cast and crew members from “The Sparrow,” Director Jeremy Morton thanked the members for their dedication.
“I thanked them for their commitment and ability to tell a powerful story.  And I told them that we were going to state.”
“Everyone jumped out of their desks,” junior Josh Arshonsky said.

The announcement caught the cast and crew off guard— the last time Prospect went to state was in 2006.
“The Sparrow” was chosen by 3 adjudicators  who judged the performance on the criteria of acting,  set, costume and lighting. The cast and crew of the Sparrow will participate in Illinois High School Theater Festival (IHSTF), performing at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, with other finalists on Jan. 10- 12.
According to Arshonsky, Prospect has already “won” by being selected to attend.  There is no further competition, and, as Arshonsky puts it, the schools are “all performing for each other.”
Arshonsky is looking forward to the experience of performing, and performing at a venue that has a larger auditorium and stage than the one at Prospect.
Junior Dana Lasswell hopes to “help people understand the story.”
However, there are challenges that “The Sparrow” must face at its new venue.
“We don’t have (microphones), so projecting is going to be a huge issue, ” Arshonsky said.
The new venue also forces “The Sparrow’s” cast and crew to adapt the character Emily Book’s “flight” to a new venue. Furthermore,  the stage crew originally had two months to design and put together the set for “The Sparrow,” and only has three hours to set everything up before the performance.
According to Morton, the cast of “The Sparrow” has, essentially,  two weeks to “put everything back together.”
“Finding how to bring everything back together is our new challenge.  We are  going to show the state why Prospect theatre is something very special,” Morton said.