Christoval's Beth McCann turns love of acting into college scholarship

CHRISTOVAL – Since she was 6 years old, Christoval High School’s Beth McCann has loved acting.

A dozen years later, the 2022 class salutatorian has earned a theater scholarship along with an academic scholarship to attend West Texas A&M University in Canyon.

McCann was named Performer of the Year in Class 2A One-Act Play in 2021 when she helped Christoval win the state title, and she was part of the school's runner-up state finish this year while earning All-Star Cast honors.

Now she'll continue her acting career at the next level, and that’s a good thing because McCann doesn’t think she could ever stop.

It was failure that made McCann realize she couldn’t imagine life without theater.

“I think it was freshman year, but I knew I wanted to do this for the rest of my life, or at least try to do this, because we lost at area,” McCann said. “Losing hits hard and we were all a sobbing mess. Even the manliest man there was just a sobbing mess.”

While comforting each other over the end of a season, McCann thought: “This is theater; this is the community. Just to see the love, the love for the stage, not the love for the winning.”

Theater helps Christoval shine in Lone Star Cup

McCann said she doesn’t love theater for the competition, but she has helped her schoolmates rise to a position as one of the top-notch competitive schools in the state in terms of success in extracurricular activities.

Christoval is currently in fifth place in the UIL Lone Star Cup standings for the 2021-2022 school year with a final update due June 17. If Christoval stays in the Top 5, it will be the school’s highest finish in the statewide competition, which is based on team performances in athletic and academic competitions.

Christoval One-Act Play and the theater program has contributed about a fourth of the total points the school has accumulated in Cup competition the last two years.

The state championship in 2021 brought 12 points toward Christoval’s total of 41, for a 10th-place finish. The runner-up finish in 2022 was worth 10 points toward Christoval’s current total of 39.

Christoval High School principal John Choate – who admits he’s pretty competitive when it comes to thinking about the Lone Star Cup – said it has become a mark of quality for Texas public school districts.

“For the longest time, it wasn’t a conversation,” said Choate, who pointed to other West Texas schools Wall and Mason who have won the Lone Star Cup in recent years. “But once we appeared in the standings, yeah, we talk about it. We don’t really talk in terms of the Lone Star Cup but we talk in terms of, ‘Are all our programs successful.’ ”

While Christoval’s athletic programs have done their part to score Cup points, the theater program – led by Travis Harris -- is one of the most consistently successful Christoval endeavors.

In his 10 years at Christoval, the Angelo State University graduate affectionately known as Mr. T has sent plays to state competition six times. The Cougar actors won state titles twice and finished second twice. McCann is the second Christoval player under Harris' direction to receive the coveted Samuel French Award given to the state's best actor.

McCann success due to dedication

Harris said it would be hard to find a more dedicated, hard-working and talented performer than McCann, who earned the Mercer Theatre Scholars Scholarship at West Texas A&M along with an Academic Merit Scholarship.

In three seasons of One-Act Play, McCann has won Best Performer five times and all-star cast four times at various competitions.

“She’s actually never had the lead, staring role, but she’s still managed to be the outstanding actress in the plays because she’s that good,” said Harris, who started working with McCann in seventh grade One-Act Play. “She was definitely unique. She stood out.”

Harris said McCann’s talent often forced her into supporting roles because they were more difficult. But his top actress never relied on her talent.

“She’s always the one who knows what needs to be done (to prepare for a production),” the director said. “She’ll come in and work on something or paint something. She has left her mark and everyone looks up to her.”

Last year while portraying Margaret Barrie in The Lost Boy, a play about Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie, Harris said McCann “didn’t have the most lines. She wasn’t in every scene, but her acting ability made her stand out. She embodied that role like she always does. I tell students to read their scripts every day, and I know she is one that does. And she digs deep into her character and finds (unexpected) things.”

Harris said for her senior year, McCann was set to play the lead in Of Serpents & Seaspray.

But “nobody was feeling it,” McCann said.

Harris went to his top student and suggested they instead perform the play that was scrapped in 2020. But the lead in Unexpected Tenderness is a male character.

“I knew for anybody, it would be heart-breaking, but she still stood up for the team,” Harris said. “I remember her words: 'Whatever I need to do.' But I could tell it wasn’t what she wanted to do.”

Summer program led to eventual scholarship

Since the age of six when her parents signed her up for a San Angelo Broadway Academy (SABA) summer program – “I think they were just trying to get me out of the house because I was a little devil child” – McCann said she has loved the stage and simply being involved.

“I got one line in six years there, but I just loved being on stage,” said McCann, who was thrilled when she discovered she could participate in One-Act Play in junior high.

“I’m doing theater, I don’t care what part I get as long as I’m on stage.”

SABA was McCann's path to the stage, but it took younger brother Benjamin a little longer to follow.

“The funny thing is, Ben has the absolute worst stage fright, or he did,” McCann said of her brother, who was part of both the 2021 and 2022 Christoval OAP productions. “I kept trying to get him to come to SABA with me. I was like, 'Ben, you’ll love it, you’ll have so much fun getting into costume and makeup. They’ll give you a mustache!' I was trying so hard to get him in, but he just couldn’t because he had such stage fright.”

When Ben -- who will be a junior next year at Christoval -- was in seventh grade, his sister finally talked him into participating. But he just wanted to be crew, McCann said. Still, Harris requires even crew to perform a monologue for auditions.

“He knocked it out of the park and he was cast as Templeton in Charlotte’s Web,” McCann said of her brother’s audition.

Ironically, Ben has played the son of his sister’s characters in two productions.

Looking to the future

McCann said she can’t imagine a life without performing, but she’s also interested in the production side of theater.

Having competed in UIL Theatrical Design competition at state and always having an interest in art, McCann will double major at West Texas A&M, adding graphic design to her repertoire.

“So I was just going to go to WT for their graphic design program,” McCann said. “They have some really successful graduates who went on to work for Marvel.”

While competing at regional hosted by WTA&M, she caught the eye of the theater directors.

“I want theater to be a part of my life, even if it is just community theater. I will never give up on that,” McCann said. “But ever since I was little, I wanted to work as a character designer for a video game company or Pixar. I’m just going to follow those two paths and see where it takes me.”

Amy McDaniel is a multimedia journalist. Send news tips to amy.mcdaniel@gosanangelo.com. Consider supporting West Texas journalism with a subscription to GoSanAngelo.com.

This article originally appeared on San Angelo Standard-Times: Christoval's Beth McCann turns love of acting into college scholarship