By Tallyn Owens
To say the Prospect speech program had a busy weekend is a serious understatement. The Knights boasted four state competitors upon entering the meet, and those same four all finished in the top six in their respective events.
Senior Laura Winters received the first place medal for Dramatic Interpretation (DI). This is the first state champion for Prospect ever in this event.
Winters has been participating in dramatic acting events in the speech circuit since her sophomore year and says that her success this year is due to the monologue that she performed throughout the season, “In the Divide” by Antonia Washington, a piece about drug addiction.
“I honestly fell in love with the monologue I’m giving this year,” Winters said.
Winters also attributes her success to the support of the team’s multitude of leaders, who in addition to their encouragement, provided several short, different mantras. These greatly inspired her to live in the moment during each performance, with coach Stephen Colella encouraging her to “Believe the moment” as well as coach McDermott inspiring her to create “meaningful moments of truth.” She says that each mantra helped remind her of what she was there to do: “move people.”
“They kept me grounded and reminded me that I had tons of support,” Winters said.
At the awards ceremony, the winners in each of the 15 events got to perform. When it came time for Winters to receive her award and give her final performance, she was elated to see her team in the front row of a 1400 seat theater, cheering her on.
“It was great to see them while I was performing; It reminded me why I love it,” Winters said.
Winters, who also finished first in DI at the regional and sectional levels, said that she was so fond of her monologue that she generally never grew tired of it, even after practicing it up to 10 times a week.
At the state meet this past Saturday, junior Lauren Matthews finished fifth in Humorous Interpretation while Nate Werner and Laura Winters finished sixth
in Dramatic Duet Acting. Taking an even bigger finish was senior Evelyn Smith as state runner-up in Oratorical Declamation. And for the first time since 1993, Prospect’s Speech and Performance Team brought home a state champion.
