Student actors at local high schools are gearing up for the annual Maine Drama Festival, a one-act play competition that’s designed to tell a full story in a limited amount of time with a limited set and costuming.

Cape Elizabeth, Scarborough and South Portland are all competing again this year and the three schools will put on their shows for the judges and general audiences throughout the day on Saturday, March 5, at Thornton Academy in Saco.

Winning schools from each regional site across the state will then gather on the weekend of March 18 and 19 for the state finals. Last year the troupe from Cape Elizabeth won the Class A state title and went on to the New England Theatre Festival, which is held in April.

This year the group from Cape hopes to do as well with its new show, “Worlds Afire” by Paul Janeczko, which theater director Richard Mullen said he chose because “it’s a challenge on all levels.”

That’s particularly true because the students are required to play multiple roles and the show is also technically challenging, in terms of the set design.

The play is based on Janeczko’s book, which tells the story of a horrific circus fire on a summer afternoon in 1944 Hartford, Conn., that killed 167 and injured some 500 more.

The story is told through the eyes of circus performers, circus goers, firefighters, nurses and a little girl known as Little Miss 1565, a child whose body was never claimed.

Janeczko tells the story through poetry and said he wrote the piece because, “I want to give a voice to the people whose lives were forever changed by the fire. And to give those who perished a chance to speak, as well.”

Mullen said about 30 students are involved in the show from front to back stage talent, and he hopes audiences will “recognize the individuals behind (this) national tragedy.”

“All lives matter,” he said, and the point of the play is to find out whether and how “grace can be found in tragic events.”

What Mullen most enjoys about the drama festival is that it gives students at the competing schools a chance to challenge themselves and to rely on teamwork.

“We have to work together and live within the stringent rules of the competition,” he said, which includes a 40-minute performance, a 5-minute set up and a 5-minute set removal.

Overall, Mullen said, “It’s a lot of tense fun.”

In South Portland, the students are putting on “The Children’s Hour,” a 1934 play written by Lillian Hellman. Like the show in Cape, this is a drama that tells a rather shocking story.

It’s set at an all-girls boarding school in Scotland and revolves around a spiteful, angry student named Mary who runs away and in order not to go back to the school falsely accuses the two women who run it of having a lesbian affair.

The accusation rocks the community and destroys lives and relationships and according to director Deb Wray the play still has power today, although more than 80 years later opinions and how society treats gay relationships has evolved.

Wray said there are 24 students involved in the show, including cast and crew and said she hopes the production “will show the damage (that can be) done by the morally, politically or religiously self righteous who stand in judgment” of others.

For their submission to the one-act festival, students at Scarborough High School will put on the comedy ““Expose: Holiday Celebrities Tell All,” by Bryan Starchman.

This popular play for young actors tells the story of those who work behind the scenes to make holidays great for the rest of us. The show looks at the everyday problems of everyone from Cupid to the Thanksgiving Turkey who all decide to go on strike because they are so underappreciated.

A Closer Look

Prior to the annual Maine Drama Festival the local high schools will hold community performances of their one act play submissions as follows:

• Scarborough High School – “Expose: Holiday Celebrities Tell All” – Friday and Saturday, Feb. 26 and 27, at 7 p.m., and Sunday, Feb. 28, at 2 p.m. at the Winslow Homer Auditorium

• Cape Elizabeth High School – “Worlds Afire” – Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, March 1-3, at 7 p.m. Admission is $5.

• South Portland High School – “The Children’s Hour,” – Open dress rehearsal, Wednesday, March 2, at 7 p.m., community performance, Thursday, March, 3, at 7 p.m.

Taking part in the one-act play festival from Cape Elizabeth High School are, from left, Kirri McClure, Dallas Harrington, Lauren Grey and George Astor.