Photos by Benjamin Bullard
student participants— both on the stage and behind the scenes.“ I work them hard,” says Chiriaco,“ and they work their butts off. They put in a lot of work. I set deadlines, and they meet all of them 100 percent. This is our fifth actual show, and now we have nice mats; we ' ve got the backdrops; we ' ve got lights; we ' ve got sound. We have an art teacher now who helps out a lot. The band director helps us a lot with sound. I ask a lot of commitment from everyone— and they deliver.”
There’ s no dedicated theatre space at West Limestone High School. Guests who come to a school play sit right on the same bleachers used for basketball games: From the first rehearsal to closing performance, all of the Theatre Department’ s productions are staged at the gym. But with few purpose-made resources and on the most modest of budgets, the program has carved out a place of permanence in the minds of the students who’ ve grown alongside it— and that, says student Taylor White, will endure long after her high school days are done.
“ When I started this, I did it because I had just seen a poster in the hallway. I was like,‘ That seems like fun!’ Now it’ s made me realize that I have a lot of fun with getting to show people things,” she says.“ Whenever I get older, I think that even if I have, like, a stable job and I’ m doing my own thing, I think I ' d want to find a community theatre and still put on shows— because I know that I love entertaining people.”
“ You know, it’ s funny,” adds Riley Friend, a West Limestone senior who reflects on the changes that four years of high school have brought.“ We were taking senior pictures today with everyone in our class, and back in 8th grade, we had written
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Summer 2026 \\ Limestone LIFE