On February 2, 2014, Theater 4 traveled to Folsom to compete in the annual Lenaea Festival. This is an event that aims to allow high school theater students to foster their skills, receive feedback, and compete against other schools. The festival was founded in 1955 by Dr. Carl Thomas as a way to encourage high school students interested in theater. This year, around 70 schools competed with over 1000 participants.

Rocklin won four awards this year, including bronze for musical theater, bronze for a two person scene, bronze for overall production of a one act play and a respondent’s choice award for a two person scene. Olivia Lawrence won the bronze for musical theater for singing “Astonishing” from the musical “Little Women.”

Dani Keane and Jolie Meade won the bronze for a two person scene. They wrote and performed a scene titled #momprobs that centers around the relationship between a daughter obsessed with her phone and her loving mom. Dani played the daughter and Jolie was her mother, the two came up with the idea in their theater class talking about their own parents.

The entire Theater 4 class took the bronze for overall production of a one act play. The piece they performed was called “Turbulence” and the class has been working on writing and perfecting it for three months. The act consisted of a plethora of crazy characters who are acting out a comedic play on an airplane and contains a dramatic plot twist as Dani holds up the theater from the audience. Winning bronze out of so many schools is a great accomplishment and the Theater 4 class was able to see their hard work pay off. Look for more great original productions from this class later this year when their One Person Shows debut.