WeGo Drama will spread a message with a 2 in 1 show to prepare for the annual Illinois High School Association (IHSA) competition on Friday and Saturday.

“No matter what background you come from, everybody deals with stress, everybody deals with anxiety, everybody deals with not fitting in, and these shows will hit home for a lot of people,” senior actor Rudy Munoz said.

The IHSA competition consists of a 40-minute play and a 30-minute group interpretation.

The 40-minute competition play is “Nickel and Dimed.”

“(It’s) this woman who lives in this high-end Manhattan world and she’s trying to live inside the world of people who barely make next to nothing,” Munoz said. “What initially started as a 3-month project became a year experiment to understand what it’s like to see things on the other side.”

The 30-minute group interpretation adaptation piece is “The Rest of Us Just Live Here.”

“(The group interpretation is about) how we all grew up like reading and watching Harry Potter as well as Percy Jackson. It’s about the one kid who finds out that life sucks but you know you’re special in some sort of way,” Munoz said. “It’s about the kids who live in that kind of world, who are not special and can’t just run away and be in this fantasy.”

The drama play and group interpretation adaption piece are distinctly separate pieces that will be judged by the IHSA.

Given the highly competitive level, students are preparing for the competition in one way.

“They rehearse, rehearse, and rehearse,” drama director Mark Begovich said. “They also have to know how to move and set up the stage to meet the IHSA requirements.”

Tickets are sold for $10 during all lunch hours,  at www.wegotheater.com, or at the door.

All performances are at 7 p.m in the auditorium.