The finals of the 2020 Canning Shakespeare Competition were held on Saturday 22 August, with students performing monologues from Shakespeare’s works live onstage at the Mandurah Performing Arts Centre.

Twelve local students competed in the finals, performing a range of different characters.

The performances were judged by 3 industry professionals: Glenda Linscott, Senior Lecturer in Acting at the Western Australia Performing Arts Academy (WAAPA); Deb Mitchell, President of the Speech and Drama

Association of Western Australia; and Morgan Dukes, an emerging young actor from WAAPA and winner of this year’s Best Actress Award for ECU/WAAPA Vice Chancellor’s Shakespeare Award.

First place was won by Maria Collett, Grade 10 from Austin Cove Baptist College. She performed as Malvolio (Act II, Scene V) from Twelfth Night.

Second place was won by Tom Crocker, Grade 12 from Austin Cove Baptist College, who performed as Lancelot (Act II, Scene II) from The Merchant of Venice.

Third place was won by Hannah Inwood, Grade 11 from Mandurah Baptist College, who performed as Lady Macbeth (Act V, Scene I) in Macbeth.

Gemma Lever, Grade 12 at Austin Cove Baptist College, performed Phoebe’s Monologue from As You Like It (Act III, Scene V) and won fourth place.

Mr Hastie opened the competition with a monologue performance from Act 2 Scene 2 of Hamlet.

“I’m proud of all the contestants, who had the courage to enter the competition and have a go,” Mr Hastie said. “They committed to learning a monologue and performing it onstage – that’s not an easy thing for anyone to do, but a valuable learning experience.

“I was really pleased to see the talent and enthusiasm on display.”

“Congratulations to the winners of this year’s competition. There were some very talented performances, which made it quite difficult to decide on a winner.”

“Thank you as well to our judges, who gave up their time on a Saturday to travel down here to Mandurah and invest in young people from our community. A special shout out to Morgan Dukes, who offered to donate her judges’ honorarium so that for the first time, a fourth contestant also received a prize.”

The Canning Shakespeare Competition is an annual event run by Andrew Hastie MP. 

The Competition provides senior high school students an opportunity to gain public speaking and theatrical performance experience, meet creative industry experts and