June 22, 2020 - In the National Speech and Debate Association’s National Tournament, Center High School’s Mark Perkins and Jack Callen Watlington advanced to the final 60 in the 260-team Duo Interpretation Contest this past weekend.
“We were so excited,” senior Mark Perkins said. “This contest is loaded with talent from all over the country, and the entries are not at all divided by school size. All of us from ‘little ole CHS’ are going head-to-head against actors and speakers from Los Angeles and New York City and Chicago. To be in the top 60 against that field...we’ll take it!”
The NSDA is a national organization similar to Texas’ University Interscholastic League, or UIL. The UIL organizes all school competitions in athletics, music, and academics. Whereas UIL contests include categories that represent almost every academic skill, the NSDA emphasizes speech and debate and drama.
“I’ve worked with UIL prose and poetry and one-act play my whole career,” NSDA sponsor Pamela Franklin said. Those are good contests, but the NSDA format allows for more creativity and offers talented students a wonderful platform for their abilities to shine.”
The more familiar UIL Academic meets are state-level contests with competitive divisions just like those for baseball and basketball. For most contests, three competitors advance from the district contest which features 6-8 schools of similar size. Then at the regional contest, the three top contestants will advance to state in hopes of being state champion.
“NSDA operates at a much larger level than the UIL,” CHS Academic Coordinator Doug Moore explains. “Our NSDA District is called ‘The Yellow Rose District’ and it includes schools from all over Texas. We have schools from the Dallas area down to schools on the coast. The District is much larger than a UIL District, about twice the size of a UIL Region, in fact. NSDA doesn't have different divisions. Every school from 1A to 6A, private or public all go into the same pot. Then when you get to the national contest, there are contestants from 111 districts across the country and from some foreign countries. There are thousands of students in the over-all tournament and the winner will be the national champion. It is just a whole different scale.”
Originally scheduled for last week in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the COVID-19 pandemic made it necessary to restructure the contest so that the national qualifiers could submit their speech, debate, and dramatic performances via video.
“I was so proud of their work with the video format,” three-time qualifier Keaton Watlington said. “I was Mark’s partner for three years and I loved performing live with him and responding to the audience’s laughs. Mark and my brother had that same experience at district, but the pandemic changed much more for Nationals than just the format. To protect the actors, they had to film each other in completely different rooms. They couldn’t react to each other—they couldn’t even see each other. Instead, they reacted to what they THOUGHT the other would be doing. The recording turned out to be pretty amazing.”
In the Round-of-60, also called the “Octafinals,” Perkins and Watlington came very close to advancing to the National Quarterfinals, or the Round-of-30.
“In the Octafinals, our video was judged against five other teams by a panel of three judges,” Jack Callen said. “Then it was viewed again against another five teams by another three judges. In order to advance to the Quarters, a team had to be in the top three in both their ‘rooms,’ leaving thirty remaining teams. When you add up the scores from all six judges, the 30th ranked team had a score of 21. Our score was 23—so we were just a couple of points away from advancing. Disappointing, but also pretty exciting.” They ultimately finished ranked 39th.
For their performance, Perkins and Watlington chose to do scenes from a comedy classic: Monty Python’s Quest for the Holy Grail.
“Anyone who loves comedy almost has to be a student of ‘The Holy Grail,’” Perkins said. “Jack Callen and I had a lot of fun playing all those classic characters and trying to bring something different and distinctive to them.”
“I guess I liked all that too,” Jack Callen said. “What I liked the most though was the new clothes. Since we have to perform in dress attire, I got a new sport coat out of the deal.”