Bronze Award – The 14th English Radio Drama Competition 2022
A radio drama is an acoustic performance using only your voice and sound effects. It is surely an unforgettable experience for both the performers and audience.
This year, four of my friends and I joined the 14th English Radio Drama Competition hosted by the Smart Education Charitable Foundation. It was a competition against an astronomical number of schools in Hong Kong and Macau. Over 200 teams joined, but only 11 teams had the chance to perform their radio drama live in front of judges and an audience in the Final round. We never tried anything like this, so we gave our best shot during the whole competition.
First, each team had to submit a script based on one of three topics. We chose the topic about exploring “uncharted waters”, which was about stepping out of our comfort zones to search for our inner self or exploring the meaning of life. As a team, we collaboratively discussed the story we wanted to share and developed characters with distinct personalities.
Next, 30 semi-finalists were announced (15 from the Primary level and 15 from the Secondary level). As one of the semifinalists, we then had to perform a 5-minute radio drama and submit our recording. We recorded our lines and edited them with sound effects to engage the listeners. Our group worked tirelessly at the school library to create a lively and realistic radio drama. With all the effort we put forth, we were satisfied with the end-product.
Months later, the finalists were announced, and we were one of five teams from the Secondary Division invited to perform our radio drama live at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. It was a unique experience performing live for a panel of adjudicators and audience which included our competitors, teachers and even some parents.
On the day of our live and final performance, we were up against four top schools in Hong Kong, making it quite nerve-racking at first. We gave our best performance, and alas, we were awarded the Bronze Award!
As such, this radio drama competition broadened our horizons, and we gained much more knowledge and ideas on this topic. It was a bittersweet moment since I will be leaving Hong Kong, but I am glad I had this truly unforgettable experience to collaborate with my friends at Hong Kong True Light College.
Performing at the 14th English Radio Drama Competition at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
Being awarded the Bronze Award from the panel of adjudicators.
Arriving at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
Awaiting our results from the competition.
Along with our trophy, we received gift bags with book coupons, stuffed toys, boxes of masks and other goodies.
Watch our live performance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BK6uCbRDY4&feature=youtu.be
We’ve encountered many challenges during this unique competition, especially the fact our final live performance was during our exams! Our group went to the library tirelessly recording our script and later adding sound effects to make the recording more lively and realistic, which made the end-product pretty satisfying.
On the day of our live and final performance, we were up against 4 top schools in Hong Kong, making it quite nerve-wracking at first, but we made it to the end and gave our best performance, which we ended up getting 3rd!
2A Wong Hoi Ying, Holly
