Some local budding actors recently returned home from a theater competition as stars.
After taking top honors during a regional play festival, students at Hoggard and Laney high schools achieved high rankings at the state level.
Led by Alley Collins, Hoggard’s “Psychoneurotic Phantasies” earned a Superior Rating and the Excellence in Puppetry Award at the N.C. Theatre Conference High School Play Festival, held Nov. 19-20 at Greensboro College.
Laney’s “A Game,” headed up by teacher Brent Holland, won a Superior Rating and Excellence in Makeup Design, with one student, Sean Perkins, garnering an Excellence in Acting accolade.
Both schools’ theater departments walked away from the regional play competition with approximately one dozen awards each.
For more than three decades, the NCTC High School Play Festival has aimed to strengthen arts education in schools by “bringing curriculum to life, challenging students to do their very best work and contributing to the development of future audiences for live performing arts,” according to a release from New Hanover County Schools.
The program, the largest of its kind in the Southeast, was named one of the “Top High School Theatre Festivals” by Stage Directions Magazine. This year, 3,000 students from 90 schools performed 118 plays.
