By Diego Olivares
The East Los Angeles College Speech Team will present speeches honored with awards from tournaments around California at “An Evening of Comedy, Drama and Poetry” in the Proscenium Theatre tomorrow.
The Speech Team attended the 2013 Watson-Lancer Invitational tournament on Oct. 27 at Pasadena City College.
ELAC’s Speech Team was ranked among the top six teams. This is out of the 20 colleges from all over the country.
The students participated in the competitive speech tournaments, the 2013 Robert Barbera Invitational and the 2013 Ray Dahlin Invitational, both taking place in El Cajon and California State University, Northridge (CSUN).
The team will be attending the 2013 Pacific Southwest Collegiate Forensics Association Fall Championships at California State University, Long Beach.
The team now find itself showcasing there work from these tournaments to the community.
In total, six students and coaches Ryan Smith and J. Edward Stevenson will perform speech selections, many of them either original works or published work from established writers.
For the entire semester, the speech team was building up speeches and selections for “An Evening of Comedy, Drama and Poetry.”
“We are thrilled to offer this opportunity to the community. We know it’ll be interesting, thought-provoking and create interesting conversations,” Stevenson said.
“We want to create an opportunity for the ELAC community to experience and share the awesome work of the ELAC Speech Team,” Stevenson said.
ELAC students Raul Herrera, Gordon Ip, Sarah Naab, Alberto Mireles, Carlos De La Torres and Nicholas Montero will perform during the event.
Some of the pieces are forensics pieces, which is another name for individual events.
“The reason people do forensics is mainly to express their ideas and/or concerns toward society,” De La Torre said.
The pieces that the students selected are very personal ones.
The team members feel that their pieces not only express their interest, but express themselves as artists.
“It allows them to not only drastically improve their communication skills, but it also gives them a medium through which they can express themselves,” De La Torre said.
Through this event, the Speech Team hopes to make it a night of entertainment for everyone attending.
Their objectives are to raise funds to help support the team for future time.
“An Evening of Comedy, Drama and Poetry” will be from 6 to 7:30 p.m.
Tickets are $7 if purchased in advance on the web site Vendini.com.