On April 22, the Drama Teachers Association of Southern California (DTASC), of which CHS’ own William Garrett is Vice President, held its 103rd annual Shakespeare Festival at El Camino Real Charter High School. CHS and AC Stelle students demonstrated their hard work by competing against 36 other high schools and middle schools in twelve different categories, both performance and technical-based. 

CHS brought home eight awards from the festival, including a school honorable mention for Sweepstakes and places in numerous technical and performance categories. Students enjoyed watching peer performances as well as the overall atmosphere.

“The school was very welcoming and open, and they had great snacks and drinks,” said freshman Dylan Baer, participant in “Shakespeare Rocks!” “Everyone was very supportive and fun and there was really great sportsmanship this year. It’s impressive how much time and work is put into the musicals […and] to see the level and detail of work and craftsmanship in all the other scripts. There was this Michael Jackson number where all the choreography was from his music videos and they recreated it and integrated it very nicely. It was an incredible experience.”

While CHS did incredibly well at the awards ceremony, the festival did have its organizational issues: the majority of the finalist ribbons had “Fall Festival” inscribed on them, and the Varsity Awards forgot to read off CHS’ group for Dreams and Prophecies with the other honorable mentions. 

At times, participants found the enforcement of DTASC rules to be arbitrary and confusing. For instance, while one student competing in a tech category was forced to wear a band t-shirt inside-out, as the shirt was against the association’s rules, some of the placing performances rode the line of breaking certain clothing rules to no consequence, such as signifying a character change with slight costume alterations.

“[In] the group that won the Large Group Comedy for Julius Caesar, every other person was wearing black except the girl who was playing Julius Caesar,” said junior Tabby Mettler, member of the “Stand Up 4 Shakespeare” group. “She was wearing red.” 

However, these slight and unclear infractions did not seem to significantly impact any group’s performance.

“It was so creative, and with everything that was going on and the mindset everyone has, it was really amazing,” said senior Shayna Nasiri of the Character Costumes group.