By Kelly Morgan,Staff Writer

POLAND – The halls of Poland Regional High School were filled with thespians gathered Friday to perform one-act plays while competing in the 76th Maine Drama Festival.

The regional portion of the competition, billed as the Western Hills Regional Drama Festival, will continue today as students from five of the eight high schools involved perform.

“I’m always blown away by how absolutely phenomenal everybody is,” said D’Arcy Robinson, who teaches drama, dance and speech at the Poland school. She’s long been involved with the festival, which is hosted by different schools each year.

“It’s very competitive,” she said, and an excellent opportunity for drama students to win recognition for their work while socializing with students from other areas.

According to Maine Drama Festival coordinator Rick Ash, this year 3,000 students from 79 schools will compete. Students are judged on everything from their delivery to how quickly they set up for a performance. They also are offered extensive critiques by the judges.

A mix of first-timers and repeat performers were participating Friday. Travis Brace, 17, a junior at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School who lives in Norway, grinned when saying he was in the drama club last year but couldn’t make the festival because of his grades.

He didn’t seem nervous about his club’s pending performance of “Mark Twain in the Garden of Eden.”

“I loved the tacos,” he said, reminiscing about the night’s dinner. “That really cheered me up.”

Fellow performer Chris Boutros, 17, of Norway, laughed along with other students gathered in the hallway, including actors from Gray-New Gloucester High School.

“I guess it’s really good social interaction,” Boutros said of the festival.

Out near the entrance to the school sat Jen Foss, 15, an Oxford Hills sophomore from Harrison. She’d participated in the festival last year.

“It’s really fun,” she said. “You just get to interact with new people and you get to go out and have fun.”

The atmosphere at the festival is laid back, Foss said. Everyone’s supportive despite the competition.

Oxford Hills Drama Club director Job Sargent passed by and said the festival is always a pleasure. “It’s good. It’s healthy and it’s a creative environment.”

South Portland High School, Oxford Hills and Yarmouth were set to go on stage Friday. South Portland was to perform “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) – Act II,” and Yarmouth was to perform four shorts.

Mount Blue, Buckfield and Gray-New Gloucester high schools will compete at 12:30 p.m. today, and Poland and Livermore Falls high schools will compete at 6:30 p.m. An awards ceremony will follow at 10 p.m.

Students from one Class A school and one Class B school will go on to the state finals March 24-25.