Talented theatre kids showcase their arts in Sacramento

Emma Roberts, Staff Writer|March 24, 2014

Mitchell Aragon

After winning second place at the annual fall DTASC theatre competition, “Lord of the Rings” had the honor of performing at the benefit in Sacramento. The self-proclaimed “fellowship” produced their scene in hopes of satisfying the inner nerd of audience members, and hope that influencers at the capital were able to identify the importance of arts in education.

Imagine having to recreate an entire movie with only four people and four chairs. Then, imagine that this movie is Lord of the Rings. Oh, and you’re performing this in front of a live audience.
Sound challenging yet? Well, all of these things were recently accomplished by four talented theatre students: Evan Ridpath, Adam Gilmore, Andrew Patterson and Jessica Dupre. These advanced theater students were selected to go to Sacremento with their performance of “Lord of the Rings,” which won second place out of hundreds of schools at their annual DTASC competition.
“Well, the idea of the event in Sacramento was to raise awareness for the arts in schools,” senior Adam Gilmore said. “It was held to show off talent from all over California in order to prove that the arts benefit the students more than any other class.”
Recently, schools in California have been losing funding for classes in the visual and preforming arts such as theatre, choir, dance and art. The Carlsbad High School drama department took action by going to Sacramento to prove the importance of theatre to high school students, and why our legislature must continue to support these creative programs.
“Our teacher, Mrs. Hall, selected our scene because it stands out,” Gilmore said. “On paper, performing “The Lord of the Rings” with only four people and four chairs sounds crazy. That craziness and that ability to stand out is exactly what this event needed.”
However, the process of choosing to act out “Lord of the Rings” required a lot of thought, because of the level of difficulty involved in such a production.
“It was a pretty surreal experience to perform our Lord of the Rings scene for the last time in front of such a huge crowd,” senior Andrew Patterson said. “While it was a very powerful and fun performance, it was also a little sad knowing that this was the last time I would be performing this scene with my group that I’d grown to love so much.”