This image can be found on the official Facebook page of the Lenaea High School Theatre Festival or the Facebook page for Theatre at Granite Bay.

Last weekend, February 7th and 8th, pre-selected Granite Bay High School students participated in Lenaea, a competitive drama festival in which over 66 schools attended. Nine students from GBHS performed either monologues, short scenes or musical numbers in front of professional actors and directors who then critiqued their work and provided them with feedback.

After each performance, the actor/actors went through a workshop process with their respondents, or judges, and then re-performed specific chunks of the scene that had been reworked and revised.

Specifically, GBHS senior Kelli McTague and junior Nick Martinez performed a scene together from Tony Kushner’s play “Angels In America” and received a Respondent’s Choice Award. The award comes as the result of the respondents’ choice in picking a ‘winner’.

McTague and Martinez’s scene revolved around a fight between a married man, Joe, and his female spouse, Harper. Joe is secretly gay and Harper is addicted to pills and in the scene they fight over each others secrets and problems.

“It was a very prestigious honor (to get this award),” Martinez said. “And it was a life changing process.”

Martinez said performing the character of Joe was hard in front of his drama class, but even harder in front of his peers, friends and family because of the challenge required to get into his character’s physical and mental state.

“To really perform the scene to the best of my ability, I needed to become Joe.” Martinez said.

Senior Amanda Ramos performed the musical number Summer in Ohio from the musical “The Last Five Years” and left her respondent’s speechless and free of critique. Also, junior Mira Pexa’s dramatic monologue as the character Nell from the monologue “Like Dreaming Backwards” left the majority of the viewers, including her designated respondents and friends and family, in tears.

Granite Bay High School drama teacher  Kyle Holmes said overall the event went well and was successful.