The Riverside Press-Enterprise
Kaiser High students win awards at state theater festival
Theater students from Fontana’s Henry J. Kaiser High School recently received several awards at the California Educational Theatre Association’s state festival, for their production of William Shakespeare’s “Cymbeline.”
The festival was held Jan. 12-14 at Fullerton Union High School in Fullerton.
In the fall, the Kaiser students took first place out of 16 schools at the California Educational Theatre Association’s regional festival, qualifying them for the state festival. This was Kaiser High’s 13th year competing and their first top win at the regional level, according to a news release.
“This win is huge; it is a big thing to overcome and reach above what we thought was possible. The young artists worked so hard to bring Shakespeare’s words to life in his least-performed play,” Wendi Johnson, Kaiser High’s director of theater, said in the news release.
Kaiser High’s theater program received several awards at the state festival, including a scholarship to attend the Stand Up for the Arts event April 30 in Sacramento.
In addition, Jami Jamison took first overall in acting for her role of Imogen, and Billy Bolhman won the Phil Reed Movement Award for his role as Cloten. Jamison, Kenney Plummer and David Huyan were also presented with Top Adjudicator Awards, while Leah Young and Paula Contreras won Directors Awards with superior ratings.
Every year, schools from across Southern California have their theater productions judged by adjudicators who visit each school to watch
the plays, write observations and rank the schools’ excellence. Judges take into account the entire theater experience, from the moment attendees enter the lobby until the final curtain, critiquing acting, directing and technique.
The state festival included four first-place winners from December, with schools representing the Inland Empire and Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties.
For the state festival, students were graded on how they loaded in their set pieces to Fullerton Union High School to setup, including lights and sound equipment, how they performed the show and took down the set, as well as the overall atmosphere during their 4-hour portion. This included the 2-hour performance with a 15-minute intermission.
The “Cymbeline” performance was completely student-run with 36 students total, consisting of 25 actors
and 11 backstage techs. This means students learned to mic-up actors and turn on and off the mics when the actors spoke, learned to set up the lights, created the set and costumes and applied makeup and hair.
Since first entering in the California Educational Theatre Association festivals in 2012, Kaiser has won a number of awards, including second place last year and third place the year before, according to the news release.
“This is a tremendous accomplishment for Kaiser High theater students, and we are so proud of all their amazing work and perseverance to reach this point,” Miki R. Inbody, superintendent of the Fontana Unified School District, said in the news release. “This production was especially outstanding and we cannot wait to see what the theatre department will deliver next.”