About

Meet the Winners

PLAYWRIGHTS

KALSON CHAN (Within the Wall of Sand) is a senior at Lowell High School. When not busy sleeping or staring blankly at his computer screen, he enjoys reading books on history and philosophy and fiction and is active in Lowell's JROTC program. He rarely participates in the creation, production, and/or execution of artistic works, preferring a spectatorial role over any other. However, he has enjoyed unleashing the legions of creative demons from his soul with Benson on Within the Wall of Sand and hopes to unleash them again sometime. Until then, Sic transit gloria daemonum mei.

SANTINO GARCIA (Sexy Knees) is currently a junior in the School of the Arts Theatre department. He has studied acting for a little more than three or four years (he still needs to decide this specific time frame) and has concluded that he wishes to continue in this field for as long as nature allows. He also will continue to write ten-minute plays and will one day write a full-length play. He has also performed in SOTA’s twenty-fifth anniversary performance of Fiddler on the Roof where he played the constable and also acted in the New Conservatory Theatre Center this previous summer. He attended the California State Summer School for the Arts in 2006 and is designated as a California State Arts Scholar for doing so. He would like to thank his family and his friends who supported him everyday since he was born.

TANEA LUNSFORD (Mary) is a sixteen-year-old San Francisco native. She is primarily a poet. She has been published in multiple anthologies and enjoys writing about things she knows and learning about things she doesn't. Her future plans are to attempt to use and improve her writing in everything she does. She has learned, as a member of the Baptist church to never thank single people but to thank as a whole because she knows she will end up missing someone.

BENSON MA (Within the Wall of Sand), a 17-year-old native San Franciscan, is currently a senior at Lowell High School. From the time he was little, he loved to watch Chinese and western operas and plays. He has read many world-renowned books and plays, including Waiting for Godot, the Arthurian legends, Death of a Salesman, Paradise Lost, , etc. The literature he has read affected him a lot by providing him with insights on daily life, and many became the thematic inspirations for his co-written piece, Within the Wall of Sand. He has taken many situations from people's lives and tried to paint it on the stage (revelation). He hopes his play can bring the audience to ponder for a personal revelation.

ROMOLO WILKINSON (Colossians 3:14) is a senior in the Theatre department at School Of The Arts. He acted in, directed, and wrote a number of pieces for On The Beach, a recent one-act play festival at SOTA. For four years he has studied acting with Phillip Rayher, playwriting with Ellen Koivisto, Shakespeare and Voice with Elizabeth Carter, Asian Theatre with Jubilith Moore, improvisation with Brady Lea and Amos Glick, and Haitian dance with Michelle Martin. After high school, he plans to work toward a BFA in acting.