The Rhode Island Theater Education Association will be having its annual statewide high school drama festival this weekend. The host school for the 2017 festival is Cranston High School West, which will house the productions of 10 different high schools from Friday night, throughout the day Saturday and into the night as well.

The West drama club performed their own production for audiences all of this past weekend, in preparation for entering the performance in the state drama festival next weekend. West senior Erika Greenwood, directed Pandoras Black Box, written by M. Tauseef Zaman, a Cranston West 2009 graduate. Greenwood and many of her fellow drama cast and crew have been to the RI State Drama Festival for the past three years of their high school career, have won there, and have gone on to represent Rhode Island as one of just two high schools to perform in the New England Drama Festival, which showcases the very best of the best dramatic productions from schools all over New England. This year's cast and crew are hopeful to be representing Rhode Island again this year at the New England Drama Festival with "Pandora's Black Box."

As is tradition, this spring performance at West also featured a "talk back" session at the end of each showing. The session allows the audience to give their feedback about the show they've just seen, its interpretation of the storyline and its overarching themes, the performances by the actors and actresses, and about the technical aspects of the show including lights, sound, props, scenery, costumes, hair and makeup and the like. The cast and crew then take back what they have heard for suggestions and compliments and use that feedback to tweak their performance in time for this weekend's festival.

On Monday afternoon, high schools from around the state will begin to arrive on schedule, loading in their props and costumes in preparation for the weekend. According to Greenwood, the rules and regulations for the festival participants are strict and include time limits on the show performance itself, as well as on things such as the amount of time allowed for set up and clean up of the scenery and the types of props which are and are not allowed to be used. In preparation for this weekend's festival, CHSW drama club performed the show just as they would at the festival, adhering to all of the festival's rules and regulations.

Full festival passes for this weekend's festival at Cranston West are $30 per person. Passes for each session are $10 per session. A family of four receives a discount of $25 per full festival pass and $8 per session pass. Tickets will be sold at the door before each session and throughout the festival.

The show times and schools that are performing throughout festival and including ticket prices are as follows:

Friday, March 10: Session One: 5:30 p.m. Show 1: Barrington High School, 6:25 p.m. Show 2: Cumberland High School, 7 p.m. Show 3: Hope High School.

Saturday, March 11: Session Two: 9 a.m. Show 4: Cranston High School East, 10:10 a.m. Show 5: Saint Raphael's Academy.

Saturday, March 11: Session Three: 1 p.m. Show 6: Scituate High School, 2:10 p.m. Show 7: Coventry High School, 3:20 p.m. Show 8: South Kingstown High School.

Saturday, March 11: Session Four: 6 p.m. Show 9: Cranston High School West, 7 p.m. Show 10: Bishop Hendricken High School.