On Saturday, Oct. 21, AVPA Theater competed in the 2023 Drama Teachers Association of Southern California (DTASC) Festival. This year, DTASC was held at Royal High School in Simi Valley, and CCHS participated in six performance categories and one technical theater category.
DTASC is a unique competition in many ways. Every participating school is given a three-letter code that participants repeat at the start of every scene and presentation, in order to minimize the possibility of judging bias. Every performance and technical theater category has a time limit and has to meet certain requirements. For instance, all of the actors in performance categories are equipped only with 2-4 chairs, with no costumes or props allowed, and they perform in in classrooms. Depending on the category, participants will perform their scene or present their work in one or two preliminary rounds, and can later advance to the semi-final and final round if they are not eliminated.
Junior Stella Burns and senior Hayden Herbst competed in the Costumes and Makeup category and won first place. The theme for the category this year was gothic and horror plays, for which the pair designed, researched and created a costume and stage makeup for the play “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”.
Seniors Annelise Reilman and Nene Makinoda competed in the Audition Monologue category, with Reilman performing monologues from the plays “The Dutch Courtesan” and “The Crucible” and Makinoda performing monologues from the plays “The Importance of Being Earnest” and “The Laramie Project”. Reilman advanced to the semi-finals and Makinoda advanced to the finals, ultimately winning an honorable mention.
Senior Ayla Moses and junior Giada San Jose directed a scene of the play “The Diary of Anne Frank” for the “Look Ma, No Chairs” category, in which participants could not use any chairs in their scene. The cast – Isaiah Griffin, Natalie Cayetano, Lux Amaya, and Iris Harmon – advanced to the final round, ultimately winning an honorable mention.
Senior Annelise Reilman, junior Katie Sriro, and senior Sofia Pezo, directed a scene of “The Crucible” for the Top 10 American Plays category, in which every scene needed to be from a specific list of ten plays compiled by multiple theater critics. The cast, Catherine Laborde, Zoe Smith, Lina DeRosa, Ryan Vermette, Wren Rodriguez y Gibson, and Annie Francuz, advanced to the final round and won an honorable mention.
Freshman Riley Cutler directed a scene of the play “The Importance of Being Earnest” with actors Soledad Kirk and Julia Gordenstein for the “Shaw Gone Wilde” category, in which every scene had to be from a play written by George Bernard Shaw or Oscar Wilde. The scene advanced to the semi-final round.
Seniors Nazira Paul and Davis Barthelman directed a scene from the play “One Man, Two Guvnors” for the Open Comedy category, with actors Sachi Reiss, Charlotte Hamill, Maya Goldman, Ella Kendall, and Emerson Jurentkuff as members of their cast.
Juniors Sara Herscovitz and Ruby Gentz directed a scene from “Schitt’s Creek” for the Small Screen category, in which an episode from a TV show had to be translated into a 5-minute scene, featuring actors Josh Herscovitz, Benjamin Flenner, Josie Hooten, and Nova Ortiz-Riehle.
At the end of the competition, CCHS was also awarded the 5th place Sweepstakes award.
