Tuacahn, Hurricane, Pine View High Schools bring home awards from Utah Shakesperean Festival

Dancers, actors, musicians – we have some talented performing students here in the South of Utah. Southern Utah drama students took their share of awards at the 34th Annual High School Shakespeare Competition. They joined drama students from across the country who recently received awards and scholarships at the competition.

The competition, hosted by the Utah Shakespearean Festival and Southern Utah University, was held from Oct. 7-9. Over 2,400 students from 99 schools across the United States participated in or observed the competition. Students arrived from junior high and high schools from seven different states: Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, California and Wisconsin.

Kudos goes to the Tuacahn High School for coming away with ten awards. But Hurricane High School, Pine View High School and Kanab High School also came away with some Shakespeare Competition booty.

The High School Shakespeare Competition is the largest scholastic Shakespeare competition in the country,” said Michael Don Bahr, education director for the Festival. “This year we had more participating schools than ever before.”
 
Throughout the competition weekend students competed in front of numerous arts professionals from across the nation who served as judges. The competition events were conducted on the Festival’s stages and at numerous other venues on the SUU campus. Judges consisted of arts professionals with strong literary and performance background. The judges came to Cedar City from across the country, including New York and Los Angeles, and not only judged the competition, but provided critiques of performances and offered feedback to the young artists. Many judges also taught workshops in everything from stage combat to text analysis.

The competition provides opportunities for education and recognition in five areas: acting, dance/choreography, music, art, and technical theatre. At the conclusion of the competition selected students received trophies and scholarships to study with professionals at Southern Utah University and the Utah Shakespearean Festival.
 
“Every year we award thousands of dollars in scholarships to competition winners,” said Bahr. “They can earn a scholarship to Southern University or a scholarship to participate in one of the Festival summer camps."
 
Southern Utah award winners in their divisions.
The competition was divided into six divisions: Buckingham (for schools with enrollment of 2,001 or more), Oxford (enrollment of 1,701 to 2,000), Cambridge (enrollment of 801 to 1,700), Westminster (enrollment of 800 or fewer), Stratford (junior high and middle schools of any size) and Essex (schools or groups which are not members of state high school associations).
 
ACTING
Larry Lott Acting Award (1,000 scholarship to SUU): Kenna Hammett; Hurricane Middle School; Hurricane, Utah. (Stratford Division)
Sweepstakes First Place Award (Cambridge Division) Tuacahn High School
Ensemble First Place: Jan and Andy Hunsaker; Tuacahn High School; Ivins, Utah
Ensemble Second Place: Agnes Broberg; Timpanogos High School; Orem, Utah
Ensemble Third Place: Richard Hill; Hurricane High School; Hurricane, Utah
Duo/Trio First Place: Natalie Spangler and Selena Price; Tuacahn High School; Ivins, Utah
Duo/Trio Second Place: Chris Whiteside and Parker Olsen; Tuacahn High School; Ivins, Utah
Ray Jones First Place Monologue Award: Crystal Jackson; Tuacahn High School; Ivins, Utah
Mono-Acts Second Place: Lauren Benjamin’ Richfield High School; Richfield, Utah
Mono-Acts Third Place: Hannah Liddell; Tuacahn High School; Ivins, Utah
Larry Lott Acting Award: Brayden Guter; Tuacahn High School; Ivins, Utah
 
DANCE/CHOREOGRAPHY COMPETITION
Duo/Trio First Place (tie): Mica Litelwood, Stefani Schramm and Kylie Wright; Pine View High School; St. George, Utah
Shelby Ogden and Brianna Lees; Tuacahn High School; Ivins, Utah
 
Cambridge Division
Ensemble First Place: Becky Reed; Pine View High School; St. George, Utah
Ensemble Third Place: Jennifer Dial; Tuacahn High School; Ivins, Utah
Duo/Trio First Place: Shelby Ogden, Kira Barondeau and Benn Atkin; Tuacahn High School; Ivins, Utah
 
FINE ART COMPETITION
Fine Art Winners
People’s Choice Award Braden Brockbrader; DaVinci Academy, Ogden, Utah
First Place Rachel Rogers; Valley High School; Kanab, Utah
Second Place Deborah Hutchins; Pine View High School; St. George Utah
 
MUSIC COMPETITION
For the music competition, students were able to compete in Madrigals and Minstrels. Madrigals (a minimum of five people) presented six to ten minutes of music. Minstrels (one to four people) presented three to seven minutes of music.
 
Music Winners
Madrigal Competition
First Place Award (tie): Pleasant Grove High School; Pleasant Grove, Utah and Tuacahn High School; Ivins, Utah

Free News Delivery by Email

Would you like to have the day's news stories delivered right to your inbox every evening? Enter your email below to start!

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.