It's Chengelo's Oscar time again!
Posted Oct 04, 2008
This is the fourth year these awards have been presented. For the actress of the year award, there was stiff competition and it is the most difficult year yet for making this award. We would like to congratulate all the Form 5 girls for their contribution to the massive success of this year’s play, Love in Idleness.
Actress of the Year
The runner-up is Deborah Yambala who first took the stage in The Thwarting of Baron Bolligrew, where she said nothing but made her presence felt by her skilful percussion. She then graduated fast in our next play, A Christmas Carol, where she performed in not one but two roles, Dick Wilkins and Tupper, both male parts! Finally she played the leading role of Helena in Love in Idleness, where her displays of painful emotion and heart-broken agony almost had the audience in tears for her distressful plight.
The winner of the Actress of the Year Award is Isabel Chikoti. Isabel has taken part in the same three school plays, The Thwarting of Baron Bolligrew, A Christmas Carol and Love in Idleness. She first captured the audience’s attention with attractive and light-footed dancing as Juniper in Baron Bolligrew, then showed a larger than life portrayal of a fish wife in A Christmas Carol. But let me take you back six and a half years, to 2002, when as a little girl, Isabel went to Ndola to watch and support her cousin play one of the fairies in Chengelo’s first production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She was so entranced by the play that she told her mother that her dream was one day to play Titania, the Queen of the fairies. Well in 2008, that dream came true and we witnessed a truly assured and commanding performance of Queen Titania, and it was that control and authority she showed on stage that just gave her the edge over her fellow competing actresses.
Actor of the Year
The competition for Actor of the Year was just as hotly contested, with five boys all in the running.
Our runner-up is Adam Scott who has only been here two years, but has managed to perform in three plays, The Thwarting of Baron Bolligrew, A Christmas Carol and Love in Idleness. First he took on a role in which he was never seen but boy! was he heard, frightening all the primary school with his dragon roaring. Last term he played another angry part, that of Hermia’s father in Love in Idleness. But he will always be remembered for his masterly portrayal of that old meany, Ebenezer Scrooge, in such a life-like performance that the audience didn’t know whether to laugh or grab hold of their wallets!
Chengelo’s Actor of the Year is Michael Elledge. Michael has performed in more Chengelo plays (5) than any other student, past or present. He has shown such dedication and commitment that he has taken on extra work such as designing our programmes and making props. But it is not primarily for that he is the winner. From very humble beginnings as a gangster in West Side Story in 2005 and a servant in Taming of the Shrew in 2006, he has matured into an accomplished actor with a particular flair for comic roles. First as Squire Blackheart in The Thwarting of Baron Bolligrew, he made us laugh at his gormless character and expressions; then after a heart-warming portrayal of Fred Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, when he showed his very capable straight acting side, he finally gave us the best performance of his career so far, as Nick Bottom, the buffoon who had us all in stitches here only two months ago in Love in Idleness.
Chengelo’s Actor and Actress of the Year, 2008
Michael Elledge and Isabel Chikoti
Runners Up, Acting Awards, 2008