Mayfield H.S. Grabs The Gold; Lake Catholic Takes Silver at Improv Olympics
Beachwood Wins The Bronze

April 29, 2007

CLEVELAND, OHIO----Mayfield High School won the Gold Medal in Cleveland's first-ever, city-wide Improv Olympics for area high schools, held Sunday, April 29th, at The Cleveland Play House (8500 Euclid Avenue).

Lake Catholic High School in Mentor took the Silver Medal, and Beachwood High School took the Bronze.

In addition, other students won individual awards such as "Most Fearless", "Team Spirit", "Champion", "Stage Presence", "Movement", "Nice Guy", "Vocal" and others.  Hathaway Brown took several of these individual awards.

Ten teams (4 or 5 students on each team) competed, including performers from Shaker Heights High School, Cleveland Heights High School, Hathaway Brown School, Three All-City Teams from Cleveland Municipal Schools, and Streetsboro High School.

The event was a partnership between Kulture Kids (www.kulturekids.org) and The Cleveland Play House's Education Department.

In addition, around 100 family, friends and faculty watched the five-hour long set of Improv Olympic events.  It began with an Olympic procession where all participants marched in with flags and fanfare.  Students worked with their own teams as well as mixing it up with students from other schools.

Judges included local theater professionals Fred Sternfeld, Jean Zarzour, Jimmie Woody, George Crenshaw, Kristoffer Diaz, and Lisa Ortenzi.  The event was emceed by Russ Stich and Maria Livers (performers from Something Dada). 

Two Seniors from Hathaway Brown School (Sarah Pease-Kerr and Elizabeth Porter) coordinated the event as part of a special Senior Project.

"This was absolutely fantastic!" said Domenick Danza, Play House Education Director.  "All the kids were winners.  We want to do this again next year."  This sentiment was echoed by many others in written evaluations collected at the end of the day.

For more info and/or photos, contact Tom Kerr at 216-371-2867 or e-mail kerrcomm@aol.com