Participants in Shakespeare competition at BHS are: Back row, from left, Tom O’Brien,  Allison O’Neill, Kristen McCarthy,  Kelsey Ziesig,  Kasey Smith, Siegfried Schlunk and Mohan Muvvala; front row, Olivia Sterling,  Shelby Buscher, Savannah Cleveland,  Natalie Bennie and Nayla Antypas.

Brentwood Home Page news reports
Senior Shelby Buscher won Brentwood High School's portion of the 2012 National Shakespeare Competition and will move onto the regional competition March 10 at Belmont University's Troutt Theatre.

BHS senior Shelby Buscher now competes in regional of National Shakespeare Competition.

Buscher performed a scene from Hamlet, Act II, Scene II, where Hamlet berates himself and compares himself to the actor who can perform,  while Hamlet, with all the reason in the world,  can do nothing. At the regional performance, she must do the Hamlet monologue plus one of Shakespeare’s sonnets.

The Jan. 25 contest at BHS was open to all 9th-12th grade students. Sigfried Schlunk placed second this year, and Natalie Bennie was third. 

 All the students competing this year were excellent, in artistic skill, in understanding, and in communication to the audience.

Judges included Jean Hevel, a senior English teacher, speech teacher and an actor with many roles at the Town Centre Theatre; Jean Klein-Kracht, senior Honors and AP English teacher ; and Lee Huddleston senior AP English literature teacher. Huddleston also organized the BHS entry and competition.

The winner of the regional competition will advance to the nationals in New York City with an all-expenses paid weekend to perform for the chance to win a summer in London studying Shakespeare.

The regional competition is organized by Dr. Ann Cook, a professor of English at Vanderbilt University for 20 years, former executive director of the Shakespeare Association of America, and current vice president and life trustee of the Shakespeare Birthday Trust. She also is a lecturer and authority on performance-based teaching.