Due to the preparation process of UIL, the Kody Hodge Festival took place on Feb. 16 at the Amarillo Globe News Center for the Performing Arts.

Locally owned Kody Hodge Foundation runs the Hodge Festival as a tribute to the late Amarillo College student and Amarillo High alumni, Kody Hodge. With entry free of charge, schools must arrive 90 minutes before their scheduled play time to participate in the set-up and strike, where cast and crew have seven minutes to bring the set on and off stage. The One-Act performance may last up to 40 minutes, but no longer. Afterward, the schools receive three back-to-back 45-minute sessions with respondents.

“We will perform for three clinicians and then those clinicians will give us critiques and tell us what to work on,” Director Alexandra Obenhaus said.

Respondents, also known as clinicians, will influence any future changes made to the production, ultimately decided by school directors.

“We’ll come back after we make some tweaks and adjustments and then we’ll perform for the AISD Festival,” Obenhaus said.

After the Kody Hodge Festival, the AISD Festival took place on Feb. 25 with the same expectations and procedures. However, this festival acts as a more serious counterpart to the Kody Hodge Festival due to higher expectations placed on the event.

“We take everything the clinicians say with a grain of salt because everyone has different opinions,” Obenhaus said.