2 CFISD high schools advance in UIL contest

Cypress Creek and Cypress Ranch high schools have advanced to regional University Interscholastic League one-act play competition.

It's the first time three-year-old Cypress Ranch has advanced to regionals, said senior Phillip Schmidt, who played two characters - a preacher and a miner - in the advancing play, The Kentucky Cycle: Fire in the Hole.

Logan Hardy won best actress and Ross Bechtol and Ethan Santos were named to the all-star cast in the segment of Robert Schenkkan's 1992 Pultizer Prize-winning play, which concerns a union organizer's attempts to rally a strike against a mining company.

Cypress Creek's Jon Cozart won best actor and Justin Salinas was named to the area's all-star cast for their portrayal of men embroiled in a battle for patent rights over who invented television in The Farnsworth Invention.

Both one-acts will compete April 16 at San Jacinto College in Pasadena for the opportunity to advance to state finals.

Both one-acts will compete April 16 at San Jacinto College in Pasadena for the opportunity to advance to state finals.

Marilyn A. Miller, the Cypress Creek theater director who condensed Aaron Sorkin's two-act play, The Farnsworth Invention, into a 40-minute one-act, said she ordered Sorkin's script last year at the suggestion of student Natalie Tischler, who had seen the Alley Theatre's production of the play in 2009.

"Just like most of our good ideas, it came from a student," said Miller.

Tischler's performance in the play was cited for honorable mention in the all-star cast at the area competition, along with fellow Cypress Creek thespian Aaron Lloyd.

Sorkin won an Oscar this year for writing the film The Social Network.

At regional competition, the Cy-Fair productions will compete against Bellaire High School's condensed version of Arthur Miller's A View From the Bridge, Eisenhower High School's Fences, Deer Park High School's It's All True and Clear Spring High School's By the Bog of Cats.