It was a late night and not much sleep for members of this year’s OAP cast and crew. The group is preparing for their district competition on Wednesday.

“I hate lock-ins,” senior Ashley white said. “But I know it’s better for the play and the actors even though I can never sleep. We end up getting a lot of work done with the play.”

Theatre kids who have done this before know that the exhaustion is worth it.

“I feel like we get a lot of work done during the lock-in,” sophomore Emma Cocking said.  “But by the time we’re done rehearsing I am so tired I go home and hibernate till the next day. It always pays off, though.”

The students rehearsed and worked on set pieces until about 2:00 am. A few stayed up even later and a couple held out all night.

“I had a lot of fun. I didn’t sleep till after I got home,” sophomore Ryan Brown said. “We worked so hard and got a lot of stuff done.”

The soldiers were really tired after rehearsing with very few breaks. They were on their feet for most of the lock-in.

“My feet hurt really bad for like two days,” Brown said. “We had to stand up for so long while practicing.”

The company hopes the extra work will take them past district and even farther.

“When the lock-in was over I knew being sore would affect how we did in district competition because my feet were hurting so bad,” freshman Hunter Fulmer said. “but I think the lock-in definitely helped with how we did in district and could even get us to state with all the work we got done.”