Madeira Student Advances to National Shakespeare Competition

After becoming the regional champion at the Washington, DC branch of the English Speaking Union’s (ESU) National Shakespeare Competition on February 28, Eleanor (Ele) R. ’24 has advanced to the national finals. Ele performed one of Viola’s monologues from Twelfth Night and “Sonnet 23” in her first-place performance. 

Ele will now advance to the ESU National Shakespeare Competition to be held on April 24 at Lincoln Center in New York City. She and 40 other ESU branch competition winners will enjoy a weekend that includes a Broadway show, a tour of New York, and other special events. 

You can support Ele by watching her performance and voting for her in the “People’s Choice” competition! You can vote for Ele by texting “NSC40” to (212) 818-1200 (one text per phone).  

The competition attracts 20,000 participants each year. Celebrating its 40th anniversary, the ESU National Shakespeare Competition typically takes place in three parts: at the school-level, regionally, and nationally. At each stage, only one student can advance forward to the next round. 

English teacher Donavan Arizmendi, who has coordinated the regional event for the past five years, noted, “Ele made Shakespeare’s language sound so natural. Her performance of Viola’s ‘ring monologue’ from Act 2 of Twelfth Night was full of energetic, believable shifts in emotion, and her recitation of Sonnet 23 successfully captured the delight of an insecure lover who suddenly realizes that difficult, spoken declarations can be more easily communicated in writing.” Ele was also able to hone her performance skills this fall during our production of Macbeth, where she played the role of Lady Macbeth. Tro Shaw Allen, Madeira’s Theatre Director (and Ele’s advisor this year), will travel to New York to see Ele perform at nationals. 

Each participating school puts forth a competitor, and earlier this year, the Madeira English Department organized a school competition to determine which student would move on to represent Madeira at the regional branch of the competition. Several Madeira students each performed a monologue from one of Shakespeare’s plays and a sonnet, and a panel of faculty judges selected Ele as this year’s Madeira winner and Naomi O. ’24 as the runner-up. 

The curriculum for the “English II: Shakespeare through Performance” Module, which is required for all sophomores, is designed to support our students’ participation in the ESU National Shakespeare Competition. Students typically memorize a sonnet and a monologue, creating video recordings of their performances which are showcased in a website project and in an annual assembly. Students who enjoy the classroom project are encouraged to enter the annual school competition. 

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