Last Saturday was a busy CVCA-filled day. A few months ago, one of Mer’s students, who had transferred from another school, asked Mer if she had ever heard of the Shakespeare Competition. Mer had not, and so the student filled Mer in on some details, and Mer looked into it. The competition is national, but starts at local schools. Your school must have at least three competitors, and they all prepare a Shakespearean monologue of about twenty lines. The school contest, in our case, was judged by two school judges (Brandon and Dubbs), and a judge the regional competition people sent. So, CVCA had its first Shakespeare Competition about a month ago. Mer had about ten students participate, and it went very well. A girl, Talia, won for our school with a monologue out of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, where the fairy Titania falls in love with a common man who magically has the head of a donkey. Talia did a very nice job, but I felt that any of the top three or four would have done well at a regional competition. It went well.

Saturday was the regional competition up in Cleveland, at Playhouse Square, in the PBS studios called Idea Center. We met Talia and her father and two of Talia’s friends at Idea Center. The hosts fed us well, providing both breakfast (donuts) and lunch (excellent sandwiches). There were thirty schools slated to compete, but I feel as though one did not make it.

After opening remarks, the students were divided into two groups – even numbers and odd numbers (they had been assigned numbers when they arrived). Talia was an even, so we stayed with the even group. Talia went in the second half (she was number twenty-two, so she went eleventh out of fourteen). The students presented their monologue and also had to recite (from memory) a sonnet. The field of competitors was impressive. The vast majority of monologues were good, and about a half dozen were excellent. The judges voted on three winners from each of the two rooms to compete head to head after lunch, where they would do the monologue, a sonnet, and a new monologue that they had thirty minutes to practice.

The competition in our room was fierce. Talia recited her lines well, but her presentation did not involve much movement, and I think that hurt her. All three of the winners in our room (as well as a few excellent ones that did not make the cut) used most or all of the stage, moving around freely and using many gestures (without overacting). I was content with the three winners in our room; they were all deserving, although I had picked two others to win.

The winners for the finals were announced, and then we broke for lunch while the six winners went off to practice their new scenes. We all came back to the main studio/theater for the finals after lunch, and the six finalists all went. Oddly, and I think this happened by coincidence, the three winners from the other room went first, and then our three winners went. Everyone did a fine job, but I thought it was no contest; I felt, and Mer and Talia’s father agreed, that our room was quite a bit superior, and that they would finish first, second, and third. We had nothing invested at this point since Talia was out of the running; we were three theater-savvy people who thought the three girls from the “even” room had done a much better job overall. The other three competitors did a fine job, but lacked movement overall and some polish in the new, limited-time scene.

The winner of the regional contest gets a paid trip to the nationals in New York. Second place is the alternate if first place cannot go to the nationals for some reason. We were rather pleased with the winner – a girl from our room who had done the “Is this a dagger?” speech from Macbeth. She was very strong, although I would have been happy with any of the “even” girls. Imagine our surprise when the other two girls from “our” room came in third and honorable mention. The judges had voted for a young man who had done a good rendition of Friar Lawrence from Romeo and Juliet, but Mer and I (and Mer’s students later, when she asked them) all felt that the two other girls had been more expressive and more expansive with the text. The only thing we could come up with was that maybe the judges split over the other girls and the young man rose to second based on lack of objection. It at least gave us something to talk about on the drive home.

We got home in the mid-afternoon and puttered around home. We had supper, and then headed over to CVCA to see our friends’ band, Bethesda, who were playing at CVCA along with three other opening groups (two student groups and a solo faculty act). Bethesda is trying to record a new album, so the concert was a fundraiser to help them do that. Since we were leisurely over supper, Mer and I missed the opening two student-group acts, and only caught half of the faculty member’s act. He did a nice job, although he did have the misfortune to break a string on one of his two guitars; happily, he had a fully acoustic one on which to fall back.

Mer and I got to hang out with Dubbs and a couple of other teachers, and after the concert we ran into Zach and Londa, so it was a very social evening. Bethesda did a great job, and played two new (to us) songs. They even invited students on stage for the last song to dance, and that was fun to see that kind of energy and enthusiasm. I’m sad I did not have my camera to take any pictures.

Bethesda and the Bard made for a busy little day, but I enjoyed myself.