Photo courtesy of Mark Wilmes: The Russell-Tyler-Ruthton One Act cast consists of (front, left to right) Logan Boeve, Alyssa Harper, Alex Kuestermeyer, Addi Bedow, Danre Skorbinski, Jenaya Drietz, Makayla Pries, Sophie Peterson, (back, left to right) Autumn Thomas, Joe DeVries, Elijah Martinez, Jaime Solderholm, Jayda McChesney, Xander Glynn, Michael Rode, Jacob Nilles, Truen Soderholm, Payton Zaske, Hannah Dagel, Brynlee Behnke. The group earned a starred performance at state last Friday.

TYLER — The Russell-Tyler-Ruthton One Act program has seen a lot of success in years past, and continues to grow stronger as they once again made it to the state festival last Friday and earned their second starred performance in the past three years.

RTR’s One Act play, titled ‘The Blossom Canyon Fire’ written by Don Zolidis, made strides this season winning both subsections and sections to earn a spot in the state competition. This was RTR’s third time overall being named a starred performance at state.

“They [students] were thrilled. They worked really hard. That’s one of the things they [aimed to do]. They wanted to get to state, and they just wanted to get a shot at starring,” RTR One Act coach Neil Witte said. “They [proved] themselves, and they nailed their performance at state, which was fun. They got a great critique, so they knew they had a good shot at possibly starring, and at the end of the day, they did star us.”

‘The Blossom Canyon Fire’ allowed students to dig deep into their emotions and characters, with a storyline that exemplifies strength and kindness while facing challenging and tragic times.

“It’s a play that deals with some of the wildfires that they have in California. Specifically, this was a town in California that had a wildfire, I think back in the early 2000s … It came through and destroyed the town. This author wrote on that big fire and [took] certain things that happened, and it brought it to the stage,” Witte said. “This author contacted us to see if we’d be interested to do it, it was not a published source yet, which was cool. We read it, we liked it, and he let us do some changing and adapting things, and do what we wanted to do with it. So, we ran with it.”

While the play was in the process of getting published when RTR came across it, Witte also noted that it was a unique experience being the first group to present and bring this piece to life, and ultimately brought it to getting state recognition.

“A star at state means that you’re an exemplary performance,” Witte said. “There could be another school or two that gets it … It’s the play that excelled above all the others.”

In the Class A state competition, three programs were named a starred performance. Along with RTR out of Section 3A, Belle Plaine from Section 2A and Fergus Falls of Section 6A also earned stars.

To get to the O’Shaughnessy Auditorium in St. Paul for the state festival, RTR first took care of business in the Section 3A contest as well with a first-place finish.

“It all starts off with a subsection contest, and the top two teams move on from there to the section finals, which was held at RTR. Then the top team in the section, which was us, moved on to the state festival last weekend,” Witte said.

Interestingly, RTR was the first play to perform in all three stages at subsections, the section final and again at state.

At state, RTR got up bright and early to start getting ready and rehearsing before taking the stage at 9:15 a.m. to open the competition. There were eight schools that competed in Class A.

Witte said the students didn’t mind having to be the first One Act to perform at any level, because they went in with a fresh mind and didn’t have to let much time pass as the day went on while others performed. He said it also helped at state that they already had the experience of performing right away, having done so in sections.

“They were more so ready [rather than feeling nervous at state]. They know that they’re moving on to state. Subsection and sections, they were much more stressed, because if they don’t move on, then their dream is done,” Witte said of the feelings prior to taking stage at state. “The goal of making it to state was there and when they got there, they wanted to perform the best. We slowed down, the actors slowed down their acting, and you could tell that they were very relaxed on stage.”

Witte notably said that the students added so much emotion into their characters in their state performance, due to feeling more relaxed and confident because they had achieved their goal of reaching the biggest stage.

Having this been the second time in three years RTR’s One Act earned a star at state, in 2024 and 2026, the success of the program has also been blooming over the years.

This was RTR’s 13th time in program history making it to the state festival, and 11th time since 2012.

“In all of these years, we have had success, but we haven’t starred until these last couple of times, so we are very, very happy about that,” Witte said.

The students have put in hours and months of preparation, with Witte citing several hours of practice after school almost daily, but also said it’s been heartwarming to see the community’s continued support as well.

“We had a great bunch of parents that gave us tons of meals all these late nights, which has really been wonderful. Their support and willingness to do that [is appreciated],” Witte said. “There’s a lot of people that really support the play. It was fun. To have a large [part] of your hometown come and support us, is a wonderful feeling.”

RTR has three One Act plays, including ‘The Blossom Canyon Fire,’ and will be hosting shows open to the public for people to come see in person today, Saturday and Sunday.

Friday and Saturday’s show will take place at 7:30 p.m., while RTR will host a dinner theater for Sunday’s show at 5 p.m. All three performances will take place at the school’s Performing Arts Center.

Tickets for Friday and Saturday can be purchased at the door, while Sunday’s tickets for the dinner theater are asked to be purchased in advance.

“We are completely proud of them. The kids work hard, and they’ve been a great bunch of kids,” Witte said. “Everybody really gets along, and everybody supports each other. It’s a lot of fun. It’s one of these groups that everything just came together … It’s fun to see them just go on, and achieve what their highest goals are.”