Standing ovation! Hillcrest High continued its awards-season winning streak at the Utah High School Activities Association’s state theater festival, capturing its fourth consecutive state title. The Huskies’ state-title win also came within days of being nominated in nine categories, including Best Musical, of the Utah High School Musical Theater Awards.
The Huskies have achieved 10 state UHSAA championships in the past 15 years while also earning multiple top honors at the national High School Shakespeare Competition at Southern Utah University. In fact, Hillcrest has won its classification at the UHSAA state theater festival and its division at the Shakespeare competition for the four past years. That means this year’s seniors have never lost a major competition in all their prep years.
“I am very proud of how those kids specifically never got complacent and never left well-enough alone, so to speak,” says Josh Long, Hillcrest theater teacher. “Each time they started a competition season, they set goals on how they wanted to grow and become better through the experience. They were always trying to beat their previous scores and were motivated to continue growing each time. That has been really inspiring to me, and I respect them a lot for that.”
Hillcrest’s total team score at the 2026 state competition was 1,490, a new record for the Huskies — and among the highest scores ever achieved at the state level. All of Hillcrest’s 29 performances received Superior state medals.
First-place HHS wins included Caleb Timmerman’s dramatic monologue and Cooper Runnells’ humorous monologue. Runnells also won top honors for his performance in the one-act play “Amadeus.”
Long said many of the Hillcrest state-qualifying pieces were directed by students.
Alta’s theater team ended the 5A competition in fifth place, with 28 students receiving superior medals.
Brighton, the seventh-place overall 5A team, was announced as the first-place entry in the classical scenes category.
All 46 of Corner Canyon’s thespians received Superior medals at this year’s 6A state championships. The Chargers also won first place in the one-act play category for “Fortress” and a Best Actress award for Elsie Osbourne’s performance in the one-act.
Jordan High’s theater team also had a banner year at the state festival, finishing fourth overall among all 4A schools. Beetdigger Katelyn Holley won the state championship in costume design and Sydney Pratley and Madison Austin took first place in 4A classical scenes. In all, 25 Jordan High students received Superior medals at the event.
In between demanding schedules for numerous shows at each of their schools, CSD theater students prepare all year for region and state competitions. During “competition season,” students are rehearsing and coaching dozens of individual and small group performances, while staging their respective full-cast productions.
In a recent episode of the Connect Canyons podcast, Corner Canyon teacher Phaidra Atkinson voiced agreement with acclaimed singer Josh Groban, who encourages employers to “hire a theater kid.”
Says Atkinson: “They know how to come on time. They know how to meet deadlines. They know how to be creative. They know how to collaborate. They are going out into the world with these skill sets that so many people don’t have and they’re able to walk into jobs and do a much better job in college and in all these other fields they go into because they’ve had theater.”
