2020 National Shakespeare Competition

News

This year's competition was held as usual at the Shakespeare Playhouse on Peachtree St in downtown Atlanta.  There were 24 students from 14 schools. (We accept up to two students per school.)

Click here to view the gallery with more pictures. 

Click here to download Shakespeare Competition Newsletter

1st Place – Arden Adams of Mount Vernon School, teacher Clark Taylor.
2nd Place – Dayan Todd of Tri-Cities High School, teacher Jade Lambert-Smith.
3rd Place – Anne Marie Alsobrook of Westminster High School, teacher Kate Morgens.

Honorable Mention – Veronica Else of DeKalb School of the Arts, teacher Candace Lambert

This is the year of the COVID pandemic, so the national competition did not take place in NYC.  Instead, the wonderfully resilient staff at ESU HQ quickly arranged for students from 49 ESU Branches to submit video of their performances.  These may be seen on ESU's YouTube channel:  2020 Shakespeare Competition Performances  (The competitor from our Atlanta Branch is student #9.)

From these submissions, the judges picked ten finalists.  On April 27 these ten students live-streamed their performances, and the resulting hour-long program may be seen here:  2020 Shakespeare Competition Finalists. The winner was Ava Blum, student of Jim Mahady, at Georgetown Day School.

Preparations for the 2021 competition are already underway.  The Atlanta Shakespeare Playhouse has penciled us in on their calendar for February 21, 2021. Please put it on your calendars too!

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