Maharishi School’s performances for the speech competition were full of varied creativity with music, drama, song and dance, improvisation, physical theater, comedy and tragedy—all performed by a cast of 36 young people.

Maharishi School a great success at speech competition
by Maharishi School website blog
6 March 2015

For Maharishi School it was a clean sweep January 24th at the Iowa High School Speech Association's district competition, with all nine teams receiving "1" ratings and advancing to the state level.

Categories in which Maharishi School competed were Ensemble Acting, Musical Theater (2 teams), One-Act Play, Group Improvisation (2 teams), Radio Broadcasting, Choral Reading, and Readers’ Theater.

Regional competitions were February 7 at locations throughout the state. Maharishi School competed at the southeast Iowa state site at George Washington Senior High School in Cedar Rapids.

Maharishi School’s performances for the Iowa High School Speech Association were presented so the community could enjoy them, too, at MUM’s Spayde Theater at the end of February. All nine teams advanced to the IHSSA State level competition, where 8 of them received a rating of ‘1,’ the best available.

The performances included the one-act play “Proof” by David Auburn. This Pulitzer and Tony winning script follows a young woman dealing with her father’s legacy of mathematical genius and mental illness. Dia Huggins, Sam Stickels, Jacqueline Leete and Niko Thiel starr. "Proof" received Special Recognition at the All-State Festival.

The freshman Readers’ Theater was "The Cave," by Tim Kelly. This short play explores themes of fear and exploration, theater and reality, survival and betrayal through the device of the young performers creating the space of a cave and a survival situation. The entire freshman class at MSAE stars: Abdullah Akbar, Bridgit Bianco, Karan Chodankar, Bridgit Emmanuel, Jason Fang, Hermela Gebremariam, Jeremy Marks, Ethan O’Neil, Drew Schoenfeld, Johnny Solano, Shawn Spurrier, Narayani Thijm, Bella Unger, Karthik Vempati, Kai Vessey, Bea Bousquet, Cecilia Faircrest, Frank Wang, and Daniel Zhu.

Alista Wilkes, Madeleine Stood, Anna Unger, Samantha Bell, Jivani Rodriguez, Melat Tessema, Lorena Hansen, Amanda Valentine, Tomas Bousquet, Caleb Mulleneaux, Keene Lashway, Kishan Thijm, Lalith Pullapantula and Nathaniel Zhu were the Choral Reading team members. The choral reading, entitled “Dreamscape,” was created by Madeleine and Brendan Thomas, who worked hard to incorporate music and written material to create a lovely, drifting performance that reminds the audience of the variety and power of dreaming. Costuming was by Jan Thatcher.

In the Improv category, there was one boys’ team and one girls’ team. The boys’ improv group had several years working in this category, but the girls' improv was a new, young group with plenty of enthusiasm and raw talent. Boys performing in the improvisation category were Caleb Mulleneaux, Niko Thiel, and Tomas Bousquet. The girls' team members were Melat Tessema, Amanda Valentine, and Madeleine Stood. Both of these groups were supervised by Colin Miller.

The musical theater piece “Mulan” stars Samantha Bell in the title role, with Loreena Hansen, Kishan Thijm, Keefe Lashway, Lalith Pullapantula, and Nathaniel Zhu also starring. It was a fun, physical piece drawn from the Disney movie of the same name, featuring songs like “Reflection,” “Honor to Us All,” and “I’ll Make a Man out of You.”

This year, MSAE was also proud to present a musical theater cutting of Steven Sondheim’s Company, starring Sam Stickels in the role of Bobby, with Dia Huggins, Anna Unger, and Jivani Rodriguez as Bobby’s harried girlfriends. Songs include “Another Hundred People,” “You Could Drive a Person Crazy,” “Barcelona” and the classic “Being Alive.”

The Ensemble piece “Patio” was performed by Jacqueline Leete and Alista Wikle. This story about southern siblings reflecting on their life choices was alternately hilarious and touching. “Patio”was staged and directed by Jan Thatcher.

Two grade nine students, Hermela Gebremariam and Drew Schoenfeld, competed in Radio Broadcasting this year. MSAE hasn’t entered Radio Broadcasting since 2005, but Hermela and Drew had experience in our middle school with radio broadcasting and were eager to take on the challenge of competition. They worked on their own time to create their piece, which received excellent ratings at District and State competition.

Maharishi School’s annual presentation of its speech competition performances was a full evening of varied creativity, with music, drama, song and dance, improvisation, physical theater, comedy and tragedy, all performed by a cast of 36 young people.

A big thank you goes to the speech program director Brendan Thomas, assistant coach and costume and set designer Jan Thatcher, musical director Madeline Thomas, and improv coach Colin Miller, with musical help from Miranda Mallard and set construction by Darien Sloat.

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