Bringing August Wilson to Life

In addition to the many other activities that take place at Triad Stage in the fall, the August Wilson Monologue Competition is getting underway. This program, a free performance competition for high school students presented in partnership with North Carolina A&T State University, focuses on the work of one of America’s greatest playwrights, August Wilson. We are excited to be producing Wilson’s play Two Trains Running later on this season, and we are thrilled to have the opportunity to encourage high school students to perform Wilson’s work.

This year, we are working to expand access to this program across the entirety of the Triad. We are offering a series of workshops that focus on August Wilson, analyzing and performing his work, and preparing for an audition and competition. These workshops are being held in collaboration with the Greensboro Public Library, the Forsyth County Public Library, and the High Point Library. You can find a full schedule of these workshops at www.triadstage.org/learning/awmc.

So, how can you or a high school student get involved?
The first step important step is selecting the workshops you plan to attend and registering for the competition (which you can do HERE). Once you register, you will attend workshops with professional actors, directors, and teaching artists, and select your monologue to memorize and prepare for the preliminary competition, which will take place on Saturday, December 1st on the campus at NC A&T.

Students who advance to the semi-final competition will receive another workshop to further prepare them, and students who advance from the semi-finals to the finals will have one more session to prepare them for the regional finals. The top three students in the regional finals will win prize money, and the top two students will advance to the national finals in New York City, complete with an all-expenses-paid trip, tickets to a Broadway show, and the opportunity to meet many professional theater artists.

2017-2018 NC winners Aniah Brown and Jack Greenberg in NYC with Kenny Leon and students from across the country.
Photo credit Gustavo Monroy.

The competition registration deadline is coming up! Be sure to register online by Sunday, September 30, 2018 at 11:59 p.m.

If you have any questions about the competition, you can send an email to awmc@triadstage.org and a member of our education team will get back to you.