Medfield Student Places 2nd In National Shakespeare Competition

MEDFIELD, MA — A Montrose School senior won a top prize in the annual English Speaking Union National Shakespeare Competition.

The competition was held virtually on April 26, and while representing Massachusetts, Anna Sheehan placed second among 10 national finalists for her dramatic interpretations of Robin from "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" and "Sonnet 2."

After competing in the annual contest since her freshman year at Montrose, Sheehan enjoyed her first appearance at the national level.

"The moment when I was most excited during the whole competition was when they announced that I made it to the finals," Sheehan said. "That meant I got to perform again."

Sheehan credited her Montrose education in helping her achieve her goals.

"I thank every teacher who ever urged me to dig deeper in a text, to clarify my thinking, and, beyond the classroom, to empathize with and reach out to other people," Sheehan said. "It's the others-centered attitude that Montrose fosters that allows me to understand people a little bit better, and when your environment leads you to understand people, there’s no limit to what you can uncover in a monologue, in a scene, or in the richest verse of Shakespeare."

Montrose nominates a student annually to represent the school at the local competition. It's part of the school's "7 Years of Shakespeare" program, where students study at least one of the bard’s works each academic year.

"Honoring and experiencing Shakespeare fosters a wider working vocabulary, a greater sense of communicating with verbal imagery and enhanced reading comprehension," said Natalie Locke, the Montrose drama director and an English teacher. "Anna’s success stems in part from exceptional reading comprehension skills, necessary to understand where a character is coming from and the goal of a scene."