Teresa Estrada went from being a newbie in town to the most decorated student in IHSA competitions in Reavis High School’s 68-year history.
“When I came here I didn’t know anyone,” said Teresa, who had planned to attend Stagg High School until her family moved from Bridgeview to Burbank. “All I knew was that I really like poetry. So I joined the speech team.”
That led to the drama team, and both led to success.
Now a senior poised to graduate, Teresa has more Illinois High School Association championships under her belt than any other student in Reavis history.
She was state poetry champion in IHSA speech for 2017 and 2018. She also was lead actress in IHSA drama for 2016, 2017 and 2018 and named all-conference, all-sectional and all-state performer for those three years, said Tom Witting who, along with Erika Banick, coached her in drama.
This year’s drama, “Napoli, Brooklyn,” won the ISHA drama competition, marking the school’s third consecutive win in that category.
In this year’s poetry reading event for speech she embraced the theme “Getting out of the ghetto” and ended up accumulating so many points that she beat the IHSA record, which was set by her last year.
“She buried her own record by 30 points,” helping the Reavis speech team take second overall in the state, said her coach Dennis Brumirski. “It’s unprecedented. All of us have coached state champions before but we have never seen anything like this before.”
Teresa said, “My friends like to make jokes about me being famous now, but it’s just kinda funny to me. It’s a great feeling at the end of the day because it took a lot of hard work.”
Though she has loved the rhythm of poetry since she was a young girl, Teresa said she worked hard on her own delivery of it, applying her coaches’ advice as well as watching YouTube videos of past champions and attending Illinois State and Prairie State speech camps.
“From Dr. Seuss to hip hop, I have always been passionate about poetry. I grew up loving poetry by Lemon Andersen and Kevin Coval,” she said. “I love reading it and watching it and speaking it.
“It’s such a great thing to have as a young adult to express myself through,” she said.
What makes a good poem delivery?
“There are always aspects of articulation and great facial expressions and this and that but it’s very hard to say what separates you from another individual in a competition, because there’s so much talent and diversity out there,” she said.
“For me personally, I think, what might separate me is the voice I have,” she said. “I’ve been told I develop an accent or dialect when I perform. It’s something I work very many hours on in front of the mirror perfecting.”
Brumirski, who teaches English at Reavis, said, “She has a natural rhythm. And something that can’t be taught is her approach to language. The way she speaks, the cadence of her delivery, it’s kind of like an academic approach to some slam poetry you might hear. It is a little urban, her cadence, which I think works to her benefit because she’s so academic on one page and then moves seamlessly back and forth into different levels of emotional expression – funny, sad, angry, happy, melancholy. She’s capable to doing anything.
“It’s been an absolute gift, really, to be her coach,” he said.
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Banick, division chairwoman of humanities at the school, met Teresa when she auditioned for contest play as a sophomore.
“Looking back it’s not surprising she has been as successful as she has. I don’t know if I’ve seen a kid with her combination of drive and intensity and commitment. Those three things make her willing to work incredibly hard. It’s clear it means something to her,” Banick said.
“She also takes risks which you have to be able to do if you want to be a performer, because that’s how you grow,” she said.
“And,” Banick added, “she’s really good at ingesting the experiences that life throws her way, for better or worse, and turning them into tools.”
Teresa describes herself as “socially awkward. But this program has allowed me to be able to perform in front of hundreds of people, which is sometimes overwhelming, but I handle it.”
She plans to attend Illinois State University and major in theater acting with a minor in business.
“Being involved in these programs has really helped me come out of my shell, make friends, handle things in a mature manor and handle multiple responsibilities on top of schoolwork and home life,” she said.
“It’s all been amazing.”