Poster competition attracts entries from the local community and the USA!

The winner of the Wells Theatre Festival’s poster competition has been announced. The organisers launched an exciting competition for local children and young people to design the poster to promote the Festival’s centrepiece – the community production of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet which will be performed entirely by local residents outside the Cathedral.

The winner is 14-year-old Orlando Borodale from Wells who goes to the Blue School.

Head judge, Artist Jane Macadam Freud said: “This is a wonderful painting. Full of colour, composition and perspective. I love the use of receding and advancing colours in the green and yellow. Also the use of symbolism is very clever with the theatre light standing in for the sun. Altogether marvellous! An easy winner.”

Ros Johnson, Artistic Director of the Festival said, “We had some wonderful entries and it was very difficult to decide. There is some wonderful artistic talent among the young people of Wells and the surrounding communities and indeed, much further afield. We even had an entry from 10-year-old Rohit Ramprasad from Glastonbury, Connecticut!

On winning the competition Orlando said:In my design, each segment represents an aspect of a performance and with contrasting colours I was trying to convey the idea that plays are full of surprise and excitement. I am really delighted. Thank you so much.”

There are two runners up. In the upper age group – 11-year-old Aeryn Nicholl from Charlton Mackeral C of E Primary School in Somerton said: “I saw the flyer for the competition when I was trying to solve a murder mystery treasure hunt in Wells. I decided to give it a go because I love art and Shakespeare and I was excited at the idea of seeing my poster all over the city. I am thrilled to be a runner up and cannot wait to see the show in front of the beautiful cathedral.”

Runner up for the lower age group is Jayden Price aged 8 from Wookey. Jayden who goes to Wookey Primary School said: “I entered the competition because I thought it would be fun and I really like drawing. I researched pictures of Romeo and Juliet on the Internet for inspiration. I love singing and acting and performing in the Wookey Pantomine so am looking forward to seeing this performance and meeting the cast.”

Buy tickets to see Romeo and Juliet on Friday 13th July at 7pm or Saturday 14th July at 7pm.