For the first time in two years, Lynbrook’s Advanced and Honors Drama students lent their talents to the Lenaea High School Theater Festival held at the Harris Center for the Arts at Folsom Lake College, Calif. Over 2000 students with a passion for theater arts engaged in a multitude of workshops and performances to strengthen and showcase their theatrical and artistic abilities. Students had the opportunity to compete in categories ranging from musical theater solos to set and costume design.

Lenaea is a California-based theater festival and competition for high schools students with a flair for the theater arts. The different competition categories include one-act plays, student directed one-acts, student written one-acts, musical theater solos, duo scenes, monologues, set design and costume design. Lynbrook, with 20 student attendees, competed in every category. Lenaea also hosts workshops for students to interactively engage with monologues, duo scenes and musical pieces after performing them.

“At the beginning of the year, one of the first things I wanted to do was to talk to the students about the things they liked in the drama program, and one of the things was they wanted to go to Lenaea,” said drama and World Literature teacher Naomi Rollins. “The kids that had gone either their freshman or sophomore year were really impacted by it, so much that they really wanted to go again.”

Junior Adam Katz competed in two categories: the student directed one-act and monologue. He collaborated with sophomore Shubhra Dubey, junior Mohini Adkar and senior Sultaan Ahmaad to produce “Life Under Water,” a riveting one-act that follows the life of a teenage boy who finds himself in disarray after attempting to run away to New York after discovering his mother’s affair. In the months leading up to the competition, the actors would go to their respective directors’ houses a couple times a week after school and also on the weekends, accumulating about six to seven hours of rehearsal per week.

“We worked individually with the participants and scheduled workshops where they would rehearse and [the directors] would give them feedback,” said senior Lucy Euler, one of the directors who coached various participants. “That was between me, [senior] Isabella Lopez, and [senior] Diana Magnusson.”

The actors blocked, or determined where actors would move on stage, before memorizing their lines, and in the last couple of weeks before Lenaea, they were able to utilize the drama room to connect scenes and do a mock run of the 45-minute one-act. Though Katz and his fellow actors did not place in the one-act category, Katz won silver for his monologue.

“The last time I went to Lenaea, it was a big shortcoming for me — it was a total flop,” said Katz. “I took that as a lesson, and over the past 2 years I’ve really grown. Last time I completely fell on my face, but this time I placed, which is completely insane.”

Unlike collaborative or stage-oriented competitions, sophomore Mia McCormack rivalled representatives from 16 other high schools from all over California for set design. McCormack constructed a model of a scene from the play “The River Bride” by Marisela Treviño Orta. Prior to the competition, McCormack designed a set through Sims, a life simulation game, and experimented and played around. She began the extensive process of construction with glue, popsicle sticks, paint and cardboard at the end of winter break last year, leading all the way up to the actual day of the competition.

“[Prior to the competition], I prepared a binder of my process and what inspired me– the themes that I saw, the script analysis,” said McCormack. “The first day was like a science fair set up, and judges were walking around. You would talk to them for like 5 minutes, and they would move on.”

McCormack spent over 75 hours laboriously perfecting every minor detail to make it look as similar to the original set as possible. Though she ultimately did not place, McCormack was chosen to be one of the 5 finalists out of the 16 schools who competed in the set design category.

The drama program does not intend on attending any more theater festivals, however, their upcoming annual Improv Night, held by the Thespian’s Society, will take place later this year. Additionally, the drama program aims to hold a cabaret or scene night, a form of theatrical entertainment with music, dance or drama, with hopes for abundant staff participation.

“It was just as much a learning experience for me as it was for the [students],” said Rollins. “I think that’s the thing with theater, no matter how much of a professional you are, you can always keep improving your craft. It’s this constant sort of reflection, self-evaluation, changing, growing. That’s what I like about theater.”

Although the Lenaea Festival took place in a short span of three days, it provided drama students from high schools all over the state with three unforgettable days of teamwork, camaraderie, high spirits and growth in the theater arts.