Tech Senior Wins $10k Beach Blanket Arts Award

Marcus Thompson, with his parents, accepts the giant Beach Blanket Babylon check

Marcus Thompson, a graduating senior at Oakland Technical High School and alumni of Frick Middle School, has won the 2010 Beach Blanket Babylon $10,000 Scholarship Award in the Acting Category.  Thompson delivered a powerful monologue from Hamlet: Blood on the Brain at the award ceremony, held in San Francisco the night of June 7. Created by madcap showman Steve Silver, Beach Blanket Babylon is a San Francisco institution and the nation’s longest-running musical revue.  The organization presents scholarships to graduating seniors who demonstrate talent in the performing arts each spring.

Earlier this year, Oakland Magazine named Thompson the graduating Oakland senior Most Likely to Perform on Broadway. “I had a hidden talent I didn’t even know,” Thompson says. “It’s just phenomenal. I still am shocked.” This summer, Thompson will accompany his Oakland Tech classmates to the prestigious Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland . The students will perform an adaptation of Hamlet called Blood in the Brain. Thompson plays the lead role of Hamlet.