Students participated in the upper school’s annual National Shakespeare Competition in Nichols Auditorium during long lunch today.

Using a rubric based primarily on the performer’s understanding of the depth of their character, a judging committee consisting of theater teacher Jeffrey Draper and English teachers Charles Shuttleworth, Jennifer Siraganian and Ohad Paran chose three top performers and one Harker winner to advance to the regional competition.

Junior Lou Sanche, who performed Aaron from “Titus Andronicus”; sophomore Kathy Fang, who performed Anne from “Richard III” and freshman Arusha Patil, who performed Beatrice from “Much Ado About Nothing,” placed as the top three performers, with sophomore Avi Gulati advancing as Harker’s winner. He will compete at Archbishop Riordan High School in San Francisco with Harker chaperones Shuttleworth and middle school English teacher Marjorie Hazeltine.

Avi’s distinctive success and win, Shuttleworth observed, was due especially to his dramatic portrayal of his character.

“Really, what it comes down to is the words have to come alive and you have to embody the character,” Shuttleworth said. “I think [Avi] really understood it, and it was very dramatic. From my experience, judges tend to go for that. I think that Avi’s approach is one that has a better chance of success because it’s more dramatic.”

A contest that has been going on for 30 years with about 20,000 students participating annually,  the National Shakespeare Competition was created by the English-Speaking Union, an organization based in New York dedicated towards teaching communities public speaking and debating skills.

“It was a very big competition, particularly in the East, particularly in New York. I was the department chair of the English department at the Dwight School in New York. In New York, it’s an even bigger deal,” Shuttleworth said.

Noticing that Harker was not involved in the competition, Shuttleworth organized for the school’s intra-school competition to send a winner to the regional level in San Francisco, where 30 local schools, including Sacred Heart and Menlo, competed to advance to the national level.

Opposed to the more competitive nature in the New York Dwight School, in which every student grades nine through 12 was required to participate in a competition within their English class, participation in Harker’s Shakespeare competition is voluntary.

“Harker students are amazing. They take something with all the things that are on their plate and take something that is not required and simply choose to do it,” Shuttleworth said. “I think that’s just amazing and the quality that we get from kids that are basically just simply working on their own is, to me, very impressive.”

Among the participants, freshman Nicky Kriplani performed at the competition after practicing one of Richard’s monologues from “Henry VI.” He chose the selection from a list Draper and Shuttleworth provided and initially practiced with Draper’s guidance, eventually practicing by himself.

“I was looking at [the list of monologues] and this one jumped out at me. I knew from my theater arts class about the crippled form of Richard,” Nicky said. “My goal was not to win; my goal was to have fun, and I think I achieved that. It was definitely a lot of fun to try and intimidate the judges.”

After presenting his own monologue, Nicky stayed throughout the lunchtime event to watch and cheer on the other contestants.

“Even when people were doing the same monologues, there were different takes on the same monologue,” Nicky said. “There’s such a variety of Shakespearean monologues that were performed there. All of them were good in their own way, and I think that everyone who performed there was really good.”

Shuttleworth hoped that, through encouraging each student to explore and interpret one of the many monologues available, the event would be an educational and enriching experience that would advance students’ understanding of Shakespeare.

“It just deepens your knowledge for Shakespeare and appreciation for Shakespeare,” Shuttleworth said. “These characters are really alive; that’s the thing. The things they are talking about are real issues, and they’re just really well-developed characters. It’s amazing, just the breadth of Shakespeare’s plays and the characters that he created.”

Among the spectators, Avi’s friend Tiffany Zhao (10) came to the event to support him and see his performance.

“There’s a lot of talented people at our school. I’m really glad that they have the confidence and bravery and guts to perform a piece like that to so many people, because I know that personally that would be very difficult for me,” Tiffany said. “It was great watching it and seeing so many people pour their hearts out on that stage.”

The winner of the regional competition in San Francisco will advance to the national competition, which will be held on April 23 in New York City’s Lincoln Theater.

Gallery • 3 Photos

Darren Gu

Andrew Lu (9) kneels down in exasperation and frustration. Students chose their monologue from a preselected list of monologues provided by theater teacher Jeffrey Draper and English teacher Charles Shuttleworth.