The show starts with a bang.

Confetti cannons go off, the chorus cheers and Bob is born, emerging into a bathroom stall of a White Castle on Valentine’s Day.

Red Bird Productions company members put on “Bob: A Life in Five Acts” for this year’s UIL One-Act Play contest. The top three schools determined by three judges at every level advance to the next region. RBP advanced past district on March 27 in first place and competed at bi-district on March 29 before not advancing, and they held their public performance on April 10 at 6:30 p.m. in the auditorium.

“Bob: A Life in Five Acts” follows Bob on his journey through life after he is abandoned by his mother at birth. At 12 years old, Bob promises his adoptive mother that he will become “a great man,” and for the rest of the story, the audience watches Bob as he strives to achieve this goal.

“For our story, we really wanted to focus on the journey that Bob takes and the people that he meets throughout his journey,” technical theater director Allison Underhill said. “He spends his life discovering new things about himself and discovering new things about these people that he meets and how they have impacted him to eventually become a great man. Through the deeds that he does to help those people that he meets, he impacts their lives in a positive way that sticks with them for the remainder of their life, therefore making him into a wonderful man as he promised.”

With head theater director Kayla Boffone on maternity leave, Underhill took on being the sole director of the UIL play. Boffone’s absence made directing a “really unique experience” for Underhill, as throughout her whole teaching career, she has always had a partner to direct with. In addition to directing both the technical and acting aspects of the play, Underhill also managed RBP as a whole and managed hosting the UIL OAP district contest at Bellaire.

“I do mostly focus on the technical stuff,” Underhill said. “Having to wear my acting director hat and my technical director hat was kind of fun. Sometimes it felt like my brain was kind of splitting because I was thinking about how the technical elements were going to play into the acting elements, but it all came out, and it was a really beautiful, collaborative, wonderful process.”

Underhill’s additional workload led to students in the UIL cast and crew taking on a greater leadership role in the directing of the show. There was also a large portion of the UIL company that had never done UIL before, leaving upperclassmen to “step up and lead” underclassmen.

Junior, head stage manager and lighting designer Richard Manne, and senior, assistant stage manager and props head Emma Kolah, “picked up some of Underhill’s slack” by taking more authority over the show’s tech so Underhill could focus on directing the actors.

“Unless it was a really important question that needed to be confirmed with the creative vision maker for the show, Ms. Underhill didn’t need to be bothered with it, especially during the rehearsal process, as she was handing out blocking and asking about character choices,” Manne said. “I had to relearn and readjust to taking blocking notes really quickly on the fly, developing my own shorthand and making a legend, so that way anyone who looks at it can see it. Relearning all those skills was a little difficult, but I think I assumed the role pretty well, and it was a lot of fun.”

In addition to his official responsibilities for the show, Manne took on constructing the characteristic red styrofoam letters that spell out “Bob,” which serve as the central piece to the show’s minimalistic set.

The “Bob letters” were always a part of Underhill and Boffone’s vision for the show. However, students transformed the rest of the set after school on March 6 after receiving feedback from theater director Natasha Tolleson at a clinic the cast and crew attended at Carnegie Vanguard High School on March 4.

A major note Tolleson made was the idea of keeping the entire ensemble on stage the whole show. The cast and crew committed to this idea, and senior and chorus member Daniel Andrade was one of the two students Underhill named assistant director for his work redesigning the set to align with this new concept for the show.

“Immediately after the clinic, I began to think of new ways of improving our show further,” Andrade said. “Ms. Underhill leaving the floor open to ideas from the cast helped me have more of a feeling of, ‘Oh, whatever I say has weight to it,’ so I felt more inclined to put my ideas out there. Me and a few other students came together to redesign the set in order for the most optimal way the ensemble could stay on stage without upstaging, in a way that still kept the audience engaged and looked entertaining.”

A few students stayed at school during spring break every day, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., to rework the show’s set and comb through the script for moments to involve the chorus in the play. Downstage became “Bob’s world,” while the entire upstage became a space for the chorus to react and add scenery to Bob’s life.

“During spring break was our transition to actually putting the idea into practice,” Andrade said. “The show taught me how to work with other people of similar caliber who were given the same opportunity as I was. Working with them was teaching me how to work with other adults and how to care for my classmates more than I already do.”

Junior Aiden Gross, who played the titular Bob in the UIL play, had to take time to adjust to being directed by his peers.

“It was very different having so much leadership coming from your fellow castmates,” Gross said. “It could, at times, feel invasive and overwhelming, and although I had a lot to figure out with my character and my things, I definitely learned a lot and grew a lot from this year’s UIL experience.”

As an actor who prioritizes his physicality, Gross also had to adjust to playing the sole lead on a minimalistic set. He spent hours working with each of his scene partners to better understand his character and his relationships with others.

“I’m working with 20 feet of wood to create a world,” Gross said. “Figuring out how to physically tell the story and how to convey this world within my relation to other people is why I worked so hard with people individually.”

Sophomore Abella Surafel, who played Bob’s adoptive mother, Jeanine, and was one of the two JV students in the UIL cast, appreciated how working with Gross and her other varsity scene partner, sophomore Charleigh DeArman, showed her how to strengthen her characterization.

“These are really talented people,” Surafel said. “In middle school, my former director didn’t really crack down on characterization and motives and objectives. [Gross and DeArman] both really know how to work in groups. I helped them. They helped me. It was really collaborative. I didn’t know what I was doing, if I’m being honest, and they were really kind to me.”

After spring break, the UIL cast and crew “locked in,” according to Andrade, focusing every rehearsal to adjust to the new set and chorus blocking with less than a week before the district contest originally scheduled for March 22 at Bellaire.

When the light board crashed on March 22, the contest was rescheduled for March 27, with only the judges and other competing schools allowed into the audience. RBP gained a few more days to rehearse, and then it was contest day again.

“I feel as though us being on the home court and not having as big of an audience really helped,” Surafel said. “Usually, I depend on the audience to give me adrenaline. I thought I wouldn’t get it because there weren’t as many people there. But I feel like the adrenaline was still there because everyone’s excited to be doing theater. It was an overall new experience, so I think it was fun.”

The Bellaire UIL cast advanced past district in first place. Junior Camila Chandler received an honorable mention, sophomore Macy Langland and junior Daniel Percy received All Star Cast awards, Manne won best technician and Gross won best overall performer.

“It really feels the best [on contest days],” Gross said. “It feels the best the cast has ever been. It feels so united. Everybody comes together. And when we advanced, it felt so good. We finally were finding ourselves, and we had found the show. We could be confident, and no matter what else happened, we would know that we achieved something. We accomplished something. We told the story, and the audience loved it.

At bi-district at the Berry Center of Northwest Houston, Percy received an honorable mention, Kolah won best technician, the entire crew won best technical crew and Gross won best overall performer again. However, the Bellaire cast and crew were knocked out of the contest with a fourth-place rank.

“After we were told we did not advance, all I was focused on was making sure that everyone was okay,” Manne said. “Everyone didn’t take it too much to heart, and we all learned from the experience. That’s what UIL is about. It’s learning how to be a better actor, how to be a better technician, how to be a better team.”

While RBP’s loss was “tough” for Surafel, she was happy to have had the opportunity to display her skill set to the theater directors in the higher-stakes UIL environment.

“I know all the schools put a lot of work in, but especially with it being my first BHS loss, it was close to me,” Surafel said. “It sucked at first, but it’s just three people watching the show one time at one specific moment in time. It hurts because of how much effort I put in, but at the end of the day, we know that we did our best. Whatever we had out there was our best.”

After the UIL company did not advance, Underhill scheduled the show’s final performance for April 10. Gross described the public performance as “one last go” at telling Bob’s story to an audience.

“Like Ms. Boffone says, you win with grace, you lose with grace,” Gross said. “I just felt proud of the work that I put in. I don’t need anybody else’s validation. I feel like we told the story, and I’m proud of the team. It’s just like, dang, we really won’t be able to tell that story anymore. We had the public performance, but it’s not like we worked on the show anymore.”

In reflecting on the closing of “Bob: A Life in Five Acts,” Underhill said that what made this year’s UIL cast special was the major leadership students displayed. She expects that the lessons this year’s seniors taught to the underclassmen will continue on in the younger students for years to come.

“I’m very blessed and thankful for the wonderful students that I have who really stepped in and led and were my collaborators through this process,” Underhill said. “They did a really wonderful job, and I’m so proud of them. Having those student leaders within the company really helped. It didn’t feel like I was doing everything alone.”