Colonial Forge Students Win State Title at One-Act Theater Competition
This is the first state title for Colonial Forge and for teacher/director (and alum of Stafford schools) Lisa Cover Tucci.
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
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In 1994, Lisa Cover Tucci was among a group of Stafford High School theater students who won first place in the Virginia High School League’s one act theater competition for their performance of “Interview: A Fugue for Eight Actors.”
Thirty-two years later, Cover Tucci, now a theater teacher at Colonial Forge High School, directed a production of the same play that won first place at this year’s VHSL one act competition.
This is the first state title for the Colonial Forge theater department, and “in 1994, that was Stafford [High School’s] first state title too,” Cover Tucci told the Advance this week.
“It was really neat to be able to to go through the whole experience with the exact same play, but now as a director,” she said.
Cover Tucci said she chose the play, written in the 1960s by avant-garde playwright Jean-Claude Van Itallie, for her students to work on this year partly because she “leans towards what they call weird stuff,” but also because its structure gives each of the eight actors a chance to deliver a monologue.
“It’s about isolation and how we are isolated in our jobs and in daily life,” Cover Tucci explained. “It shows how these characters are being interviewed for a job, and how isolating that is, and then it moves into glimpses of their everyday life and shows ways in which they are isolated there as well.”
Those themes still resonate in 2026, when despite overwhelming opportunities for virtual connection, many of us are missing true social connection.
The students have been rehearsing the play “steadily” since November, Cover Tucci said.
“Even during the week where we had snow, the kids hopped on a virtual rehearsal every day, willingly,” she said. “They were so dedicated.”
Joshua Sneath, a 12th-grader who won an outstanding actor title at the VHSL competition, said that working on the show was “one of the best experiences of my life, and my best experience as an actor.”
“It is something I will never forget, and carry with me for my entire acting career,” he said. “To be in such a strong and impactful show with all these amazing people is something I will always be grateful for.”
In addition to Sneath, student Michael Guckian also won an outstanding actor award at this year’s competition, which was held earlier this month in Charlottesville.
The Colonial Forge team—which included nine student actors and seven student technicians—won first place out of four other schools in their class at the state competition. They also placed first out of four schools at the district level and first out of eight at the regional level.
Cover Tucci said she was inspired to become a theater teacher by her own theater teacher, Tom Clark.
Clark directed her in “Interview” in 1994 and came back to help her for a few days during rehearsals for her own production, making “a really nice full circle moment.”
She has taught for five years at Colonial Forge and for 26 years total in Stafford County, and loves being able to help students like her find their home in theater.
“Theater was a place where I found home,” she said. “It was a place where I fit in, and I wanted to provide that to students.”
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