Bernardo Heights Middle School wins top honor at regional drama festival

Bernardo Heights Middle School’s drama program has had its best competitive showing to date, winning the Sweepstakes award in a regional competition.

The program led by teacher Katie Newbanks won the top honor for the first time at the Drama Teachers Association of Southern California Fall Festival.

The Nov. 8 competition featured 35 junior varsity and middle school teams from throughout Southern California, who gathered at Royal Oak Middle School in Covina. Bernardo Heights sent 43 of its seventh and eighth grade students in its advanced drama class.

The Sweepstakes winner was determined by the placements of all festival events combined. This is Bernardo Heights’ first time to win Sweepstakes, Newbanks said.

“I am not surprised we won Sweepstakes because of how good all our acts were,” said eighth-grader Calliope Fox. “Last year we got second place and we have only gotten better.”

This year Bernardo Heights brought home several awards in addition to Sweepstakes. It won first place in the “Marketing and Publicity” and “Costume Design (altered)” categories, second place in “Costume Design (made from scratch)” and “Student Original Short Play” categories, third place in “Musical Theater” and “Literary Adaption” categories, fourth place in “Based on a True Story,” fifth place in “Open Drama” and honorable mention in “Set Design.”

Newbanks said she began the drama program at the Rancho Bernardo campus a decade ago as an after-school activity, which grew into offering one class in 2018 as an elective during the school day. Now several acting classes at various levels are offered, for which students audition to get into.

The newest class this year is technical theater, which gives students who do not want to be on stage an opportunity to learn about other aspects of theater. Between the classes and after-school option, a couple hundred students are in the drama program, according to Newbanks.

“We have a really great group of kids who are hard workers,” Newbanks said.

The productions the students presented at the festival included scenes from a play about Amelia Earhart, “Little Women,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Box” and a student-written scene associated with “Mean Girls.” Some of these are among the seven plays and three musicals Bernardo Heights presents annually between its class productions and after-school program.

Music director Renee McDade and choreographer Carly Newbanks (Katie Newbanks’ daughter who is in college) assist with the musicals, which are an after-school offering so students not enrolled in the drama classes can still participate.

“There is a ton of commitment,” Newbanks said of her students.

Other things they have done included a “10 Ways to Survive the Zombie Apocalypse” presentation this fall and a murder mystery dinner theater.

“We have won awards in the past, have done well for the last few years, getting fourth or fifth (in Sweepstakes),” Newbanks said, adding “this year was pretty awesome.”

She said Bernardo Heights entered the festival because it is “really cool” to compete in one and they get to see what other schools are doing.

“It encourages them,” Newbanks said. “Winning is a nice pat on the back, because they don’t get (accolades) like those in sports or math olympics. This shows what they are doing is also cool.”

Seventh-grader Matthew Terekhov, 13, went to the festival for the first time. He joined the drama program in sixth grade and is the Beast in the upcoming production of “Beauty and the Beast” in January.

He was part of the cast who performed an eight-minute version of the musical at the festival. He said highlights of key songs and scenes were combined.

“I like playing the Beast, as he’s a very interesting character,” Terekhov said. “I like how he shows his anger, and people see him as a villain, but then he turns out nice.”

Terekhov, who aspires to be an actor or movie director, said the festival was “really nice and extraordinarily fun because I got to spend the whole day with my friends,” but added that it was “stressful waiting for the results” because many of the other teams were very good.

“We beat some great groups, which was wonderful,” Terekhov said.

Fox, 13, said this was her second year at the festival. She was an ensemble member in “Beauty and the Beast” and was also its choreographer for the short presentation.

While the competition was “stressful,” Fox said having competed last year helped prepare her for what to expect and advise her peers.

“It was nice knowing when the finals would be announced and how long each round would take, which calmed down my nerves,” Fox said. “I like hanging out with my friends, competing and seeing the other groups’ creative shows.”

Fox, who has been in musical theater for seven years, said “I like acting because of how I can transform myself into a different person on stage and just have fun. Playing a mean role when you are a nice person is fun.”

Eighth-grader Olivia Brown, 13, is the historian and social media manager in Thespians, the drama program’s theater society. This was her first time at the festival. Brown was the narrator and news person in the true story event, which consisted of a five-minute play about Amelia Earhart.

Brown said students chose the script because Earhart is “a very inspirational woman in U.S. history, it was unique and good to perform.”

“I enjoy acting and just like performing in the community,” Brown said. “It is a super awesome, great thing to be involved in.”

Brown said the festival “was super fun … it’s a great community and awesome to perform for feedback from judges.”

The students who competed at the festival were Mickey Atkins, Charliz Bondoc, Nell Bordyczewski, Brooklyn Braverman, Olivia Brown, Colette Bullick, Katelyn Coleman, Jake Copeland, Joshua Dasho-Warren, Jocelyn Del Rosario, Lilly Denson, Emily Donalson, Emily Durant, Harper Erndt, Calliope Fox, Abbey Gallager, Rami Greene, Emilia Hurst, Alexandra Kendro, Tyler Knudson, Jonah Lolith, Ariella Lumula, Madden McCoy, Lidia McMann, Ethan McNickle, Layla Middleton, Andrea Moore, Wyatt Morris, Maggie Nares, Lev Neace, Lucie Nguyen Tan Truong, Dakota Norton, Reagan Park, Ai-Vy Pham, Benji Pipkin, Ava Porrazzo, Michael Santos, Eliza Schmidt, Isaac Skiano, Matthew Terekhov, Lindsey Tach, Sasha Tuttle and Isabela Velazquez-Lee.