Winners named in Shakespeare contest

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Pittsburgh Public Theater’s 23rd annual Shakespeare Monologue & Scene Contest that began Feb. 6 with more than 1,000 student participants culminated Monday night, when winners were crowned after the Showcase of Finalists.

In the Monologue competition, there was a tie for the top spot in the Upper Division (grades eight through 12): Carolyn Jerz, who is home-schooled, as Eleanor in “Henry VI, Part Two,” shared the win with Pittsburgh CAPA’s Logan Shiller as Iago in “Othello.” In the Lower Division (grades four through seven), Jaylen Hocker of Jefferson Elementary School won as Shylock in “The Merchant of Venice.”

In the Scene contest, Lower Division, Ethan Atta, John Bence, Henry Dingle, Michael Liguori and Jackson Vollmer of Aquinas Academy emerged the winners for a scene from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and the Upper Division scene winners were Ryan Horn and Cassi Smith of Magnolia High School in West Virginia, as Petruchio and Katherina in “The Taming of the Shrew.”

During the nine-day event, contestants performed monologues and/or scenes they had chosen from the works of William Shakespeare and were evaluated by teams of judges until competitors were chosen for the Showcase of Finalists Monday night at the Public’s O’Reilly Theater, Downtown.

Judges who participated during the competition were actors Linda Haston, Amy Landis and Timothy D. Stickney, the latter a cast member of the Public’s “Twelfth Night”; Philip Horn, executive director of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts; Ted Pappas, producing artistic director of the Public; and Richard E. Rauh, a contest sponsor.

This year’s contest was part of Shakespeare in American Communities, a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest. The contest is organized by Katie Conaway, the Pittsburgh Public’s director of education and outreach.