2nd place winner Chasity Tuck from Fordham High School for the Arts.

Last month, three Fordham High School for the Arts students won the first level of the Annual NYC August Wilson Monologue Competition. Chasity Tuck, John Reyes, and Shantal Melendez were named the winners on March 22 for their outstanding performance of a monologue by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson to perform.

The winning trio advanced to the next level of the competition on Tuesday April 12th where they competed against students from Curtis High School (Staten Island), Hillcrest High School (Queens), Repertory High School for Theatre Arts (Manhattan) and Brooklyn Theatre Arts High School (Brooklyn).

Cheyene Van Dyke from Curtis High School in Staten Island won first place. But it was our Chasity Tuck from Fordham High School in the Bronx who took second place. Cheyene, Chasity, and third place winner Tyronickah Buckmire from Brooklyn, will compete at the National Competition on May 9, at the August Wilson Theatre on Broadway, against students from Pittsburgh, Chicago, Boston, Seattle and Atlanta. They are competing for a four-year college scholarship.

The event hosted by the nonprofit educational group Learning Through an Expanded Arts Program (LeAp), hopes not only introduce hundreds of students to one of America’s greatest playwrights, but also to see “that August Wilson will live through our education system in the same manner and reverence as the works of William Shakespeare.”