Big Wins For Chatham High School At State Theatre Competition

CHATHAM, NJ — Students in the Chatham High School theatre program came away with several awards and recognitions from the Speech and Theatre Association of New Jersey's (STANJ) Governor's Awards.

STANJ is a statewide theatre competition in which participants compete for various governor's awards. On Jan. 10, this year's event was held at Montclair State University.

Theatre students from Chatham High School competed for awards in categories such as dramatic and contrasting monologues, pairs, best actor, best actress, improvisation, pantomime solo and musical solo.

Ten Chatham High School students were also named finalists, district officials said.

“This year was the largest competition in STANJ Governor's Awards history, with 35 theatre departments from around the state participating. The Chatham student actors were extremely prepared this year and took home 19 awards. I am beyond proud of their accomplishments and the support they provide to one another," Chatham High School Theatre teacher Laura Russo said.

The STANJ, according to its website, is an advocate for the inclusion of speech and theatre arts in educational curricula.

Members of the organization come from elementary, middle, high school, college and professional theaters and are interested in acting, directing, forensics, musical theatre and technical theatre.

Among its famous and notable alumni is Gaten Matarazzo of Netflix's "Stranger Things," who attended STANJ with his theatre program for several years and won a governor's award for dramatic pairs in 2020.

Here is the full list of Chatham winners:

• Macbeth: 2nd place, Scene
• Charley Baird-Hassell: 2nd place, Best Actor (Macduff)
• Matt Engel: 3rd place, Best Actor (Malcolm)
• Sydney Hnatov: 3rd place, Best Actress (Ross)
• Horse Girls: 4th place, Scene (directed by Mads Garman)
• Challen Nassif: 1st place, Pantomime Solo
• Charley Baird-Hassell: 3rd place, Musical Solo
• Jonas Wilcox: 1st place, Contrasting Monologues
• Julia Wilcox: 5th place, Contrasting Monologues
• Morgan McGarry: 4th place, Dramatic Monologue
• Andrew Krautheim: 4th place, Comedic Monologue
• Charley Baird-Hassell and Andrew Krautheim: 2nd place, Improv Pairs
• Charley Baird-Hassell and Andrew Krautheim: 3rd place, Comedic Pairs
• Matt Engel and Colin Loftus: 4th place, Comedic Pairs
• Mads Garman and Jonas Wilcox: 5th place, Comedic Pairs
• Madi Kaplan and Niamh O’Connor: 5th place, Dramatic Pairs
• Shayn D’Souza and Sadie LeMon: Improv Pairs Finalists
• Ethan Caffrey: Contrasting Monologues Finalist
• Lily Klepper: Short Film Finalist