High Life A WEEKLY FORUM FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS : Student Play on Disability Wins Award

A San Clemente High School senior’s drama about her and her mother’s battle with a disabling disease was recently chosen as one of three winners this year in a playwrighting competition at the Kennedy Center in Washington.

Kari Geller, 17, will have her play, “The Waiting,” staged Monday at the national performing arts center. Geller shared honors with writers from Rhode Island and Hawaii in an annual competition sponsored by the Kennedy Center’s Very Special Arts Program, which promotes arts for the disabled.

Geller wrote the play after participating in a workshop of the Laguna Playhouse Youth Theatre, where she has acted for four years.

The play recounts the teen’s three-year struggle to recover from a debilitating bout with viral encephalitis, as seen through the eyes of her mother, who had earlier battled polio.

Geller recently completed a role in “Troubled Waters,” the Laguna Playhouse production that represented the United States at the First International Children’s Theater Festival in Lingen, West Germany, in April. She hopes to pursue a career in acting by attending Juilliard School in New York City.

Dan Cotman, a senior at Foothill High School in Santa Ana, recently won a photo contest sponsored by Jostens, a yearbook company, and Canon Cameras. Cotman’s print was selected from more than 4,000 entries received nationally. The photos portrayed the people, events and feelings of the high school experience as seen through the lenses of student photographers. Cotman received a $1,000 cash prize as well as a camera and other photo equipment.

Cotman and Foothill classmate Todd Neville recently took first-place photography honors for their color and black-and-white print entries at the annual Orange County Youth Expo at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa. Foothill photographers won 16 first-place awards, seven second-place honors and two third-place awards.

Photography teacher Dick Boyes’ students won the overall division in the beginning and advanced levels. Cheryl Cotman was the division winner for beginning photo classes and Cyndee Millet’s print was judged the best in the county for advanced classes.

“It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.”

--Stewart’s Law of Retroaction

in “Murphy’s Law, Book Two”