For weeks, 19 Bingham High thespians would practice their monologues, scenes and an ensemble piece from William Shakespeare’s “Love’s Labour’s Lost” before they took to the stage in Cedar City at the 47th annual Utah Shakespeare Festival.

Junior Raya Tanner was in a “Two Gentlemen of Verona” scene where Launce, who is deeply devoted to his poorly trained dog, Crab, was trying to win the dog’s affection. 

“His dog would never care about him,” Tanner said. “I was the dog, so I had to learn to show my objectives as a dog. I learned how my movements could portray my character’s thoughts. A bunch of times when the character would be talking, I would turn away to show he wouldn’t like him. I wouldn’t lick him or act happy to see him.”

With the advice of their teacher, Chris Hults, she and other members of the Shakespearean team dove into their characters.

“He told us to ‘learn about your character,’ so that’s what I did,” she said as she studied dogs’ movements and behavior. 

During their two- to three-hour rehearsals, Tanner said her group, which included juniors Chris Pacini and Chandler Lerud, would run through their scene six or seven times. Then they’d get feedback from Hults and they would incorporate that advice.

“He’d let us know if something wasn’t working and we’d adjust. There constantly was a lot of changing, but our result was better than we had it at the beginning,” she said. “We also had a family night before going to the competition. We learned from our audience when something wasn’t working right or if it was confusing. We changed ours after that and had a couple practices before we performed it.”

After arriving at the competition, Bingham’s team faced their competition that day and the next two in the largest division, Buckingham. This was the return of Bingham High competing in the Shakespeare festival after a three-year absence. It was Tanner’s first experience.

The scenes and monologues had three rounds, one round every day, performing in a classroom, with a different judge every day. Her team used black wooden blocks in their four-minute scene that were carried by other members of Bingham’s team.

“When we would head to our performances, there were three members of the team, who were from the ensemble, who would come as emotional support, help find the room and to help carry all the props,” she said.

Dressed in a brown shirt with a dog ear headband and googly eyeglasses, Tanner, who was on all fours, said they had some “nerves in their first round, but everyone there was so supportive, we became confident. Everybody was kind and supportive; that was one of the best parts.”

Tanner said their last performance was the best. While her group didn’t medal, she said that was OK.

“All that matters is that we did our best,” Tanner said.

Bingham’s ensemble performed once before judges.

“During the performances, the judges picked the pieces they really wanted people to see. Our ensemble was picked to perform in the showcase,” she said.

Tanner said the ensemble, who worked with Hults as well as music director Shayla Bentley, performed their piece as a barbershop quartet.

“I watched it several times, but that was their best performance,” she said.

Bingham’s ensemble of student-actors were all seniors: Grace Iron, Hannah Church, Taeya Peck, Piper Duquette, Chloe Warnas, Ben Larson, Brady Thompson, Setu Lealaogata and Josh Lamont. They won second place.

“We were all happy. We got so close and that was my favorite part. We became a family together,” she said.

In addition to performing, the team saw Utah Shakespeare Festival’s production of “Timon of Athens.”

“It was cool. The actors performed as Shakespearean actors performed back in the day where the actors would engage with the audience and bring them their stories. A couple times during the performance, they would interact with the audience. One of my friends said, ‘I thought he was that character. I can’t imagine him as an actor. He was just so good in the character,’” she said. 

They also attended workshops. One by Marco Vega struck a chord with Tanner.

“We learned about living in the moment. As a clown performer, he lived in the moment and immersed himself in that character. He said that usually he faced a problem and had to stick with it until he could solve it. He talked about using imagination and how to make the kids feel their emotions,” she said.

Tanner, who was in the recent school production of “42nd Street,” also is on the improv team.

“Acting and improv can also help us in our daily lives with social skills, confidence, going with the flow,” she said. “I likely will use what I learned about living in the moment with improv, being yourself and using your creativity to connect with other people.”

Bingham students also performed a scene from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” combined with “Hamlet;” it featured senior Courtney Ross, junior Reagan Galli, and junior Bre Thompson. 

Bingham had three monologues. One from “Richard II” performed by senior Ray Woichik, one from “Hamlet” portrayed by senior Aeryn Cousineau and one from “Henry IV” by Merlin Lack. λ