Dramatic competition at Fullerton

Each year in March more than 2,000 competitors from over 50 high schools visit the Fullerton College campus for two days of acting and design competition and theme-related activities. Ms. Florene Villane took her drama students from all levels to the High School Drama Competition at Fullerton. This year, 49 students with 27 different performance pieces went up to compete. Out of them, four went to finals.

John Munro entered the Technical Theatre category and took second place for the lighting design he constructed for “The Foreigner,” with only “a week of preparation for it,” he claimed. When asked about how he felt after winning he replied, “Let me see — I’m overwhelmed!”

Anoli Patel went to Fullerton with her monologue from “The Women Here are No Different,” written by Nancy Beckett. The monologue she chose has to do with a mother coming to grips with the loss of her daughter. Patel went with her monologue and went home with the third place trophy for the Women’s Contemporary Dramatic Monologue category.

Matt Schnarr, back in November, played Charlie in Larry Shue’s “The Foreigner.” From his performance, he managed to take a monologue where he’s telling a story of absolute gibberish and managed to take home third place in the Men’s Contemporary Humor Monologue category. Now that’s talent: being able to win an award without speaking a word of any language known to man.

The piece that made it to finals but didn’t win any awards was a scene from “Tartuffe,” written by Moliére, starring Scott Schurr, Kate Eastman, and Megan Brandt. Even though they didn’t win, they kept their spirits high. “I don’t feel bad I didn’t win; I think it was the best acting I ever did. It was the funniest I’ve ever been in my entire life,” is what Schurr had to say.

When asked how, overall, the performance of the drama students at the competition was, Jordan Butcher, the drama department president, had this to say: “I feel we did pretty well, especially seeing as how we had just done ‘The Crucible.’ I don’t think that everyone was as committed as they could have been, but I feel that the two weeks before Fullerton the people that were actually into it, they got pretty well prepared.” “I think their level of performance is above high school. They do very sophisticated work, many genres, and it’s a great bunch,” is what Ms. Villane responded to the same question.

Whether or not they made it to finals or they won an award, these kids gave it their all; they sacrificed their time and energy for their art. Congratulations to them.