Westlake Student Competing In National Shakespeare Contest

WESTLAKE, OH - Shakespeare has been done proud. Westlake High School senior Emily Shordock won a regional Shakespeare competition and will now head off to New York City to compete in a national Shakespeare competition.

To qualify for the competition, Shordock won a school-level contest on Feb. 9. She then beat out students from 25 other Northern Ohio schools at the English Speaking Union's High School Shakespeare Competition, which was held in Westlake on Feb. 25.

Shordock performs a monologue as Kate from "Taming of the Shrew." That monologue won her an all-expenses paid trip to the National Competition at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on May 1. There she will square off with 50 competitors from around the nation. The winner will receive a three-week scholarship to study Shakespeare in London.

The competition involves students performing both a sonnet and a well-known monologue from a Shakespeare play. Nationally, about 15,000 students are engaged at the local level each year. School winners advance to regional competitions, where judges are professionals form academic, theatrical and media organizations.

Photo from Westlake Schools