The Tennessee Williams Festival held its first annual high school theatre competition October 14 at Coahoma Community College in Clarksdale. Focusing on the works of the honored playwright, 17 students competed with monologues and scenes drawn from Williams's plays. Among the material chosen were excerpts from 27 Wagons Full of Cotton, A Streetcar Named Desire, and The Glass Menagerie. Oxford High School and Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science students won first and second place in both categories. Prize money totaling $2,000 will be used by winner's schools for the purchase of materials related to theatre or literature. Students, with their teacher-sponsors, will be given the opportunity to decide how the prize money will be spent.

Sam Easley, a student at the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science, won $300 for first place in the monologue competition with a piece from The Confessional. Oxford High School's Daniel Wait won $200 for his monologue from Summer and Smoke. In the scene competition, first place was won by Oxford High School students Emily Sindelar and Joey Rodgers. The team, who performed a scene from The Glass Menagerie, won $1,000. Second place winners, who won $500, were also from Oxford High School. Mason Lewis as Big Daddy and Alex Rushing as Brick performed a scene from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

The competition was judged by Erma Duricko, a director who specializes in Tennessee Williams dramas, Colby Kullman, professor of English from the University of Mississippi, and Cindy Gold, director of undergraduate acting at the University of Mississippi and formerly with the Alabama Shakespeare Festival.

After the competition, students participated in an acting workshop conducted by Gold. Lyle Leverich, noted Tennessee Williams scholar and authorized biographer, addressed the students and shared insights into Williams's theatrical texts with personal stories of working with the playwright.

For information on the 1996 festival and drama competition, write Tennessee Williams Festival, P.O. Box 1565, Clarksdale, MS 38614-1565; telephone: 601-627-7337.