A group of seniors in Advanced Drama won the “Superior” title, the highest award given, and an “Ensemble” award at the Motherlode Festival in Sacramento on April 25.

The drama students wrote and produced an original play, entitled “Ghost Light,” for the festival. Advanced Drama students have won “Superior” awards dozens of times since the 70s, according to senior Julien Almond.

The “Ensemble” award is given to casts that do not have one single main character, but instead give equal parts to everybody in the cast.

The Advanced Drama cast performed the show in the Little Theater from April 7 to 9, before spring break, and again on April 22 and 23, after break.

Many of the seniors were nostalgic about their last play with EPiC and their last time on the Redwood stage.

“It makes me really sad that it’s coming to an end because I don’t want to leave. It’s been such a fantastic experience,” said senior Sam Engle. “It’s really sad, but it makes me hopeful that I can go out and create that experience elsewhere.”

“Ghost Light” was entirely written and produced by EPiC seniors through a process of storyboarding and workshopping that took the majority of the spring semester to complete.

A “Ghostlight” is a superstition within the theater community that the light that is always on in the middle of a stage allows the “ghosts” that haunt the theater to put on their own plays after hours. The play consisted of a series of vignettes written looking back on their years in EPiC, through the eyes of these “ghosts.”

“[Ghostlight] was really challenging, but it ended up being really wonderful,” said senior Ella Zarren. “We started out with not much, but we ended up building our ensemble really tight and really strong. We had some really wonderful moments and some really emotional moments, and in the end we just took some of the best stuff and made it into a play.”