Mount Maunganui College has walked away with third place from the 2015 Stage Challenge.

The college was also awarded the Girlfriend Award for Excellence for choreography and the Southern Trust Award for Excellence for stage use.

St Cuthbert's College won first place at the 2015 Stage Challenge.

About 150 students brought the conflict over ownership of territory on the Crimean Peninsula which saw hundreds of thousands of people died in what ended as a stalemate.

Mount Maunganui College brought the conflict to life on stage at Auckland's Aotea Centre last night.

Mount Maunganui College's head of drama and dance Wayne Flanagan says the overall message of their performance was anti-war.

'There is a sentiment from part of the country to go back to Russian rule. So there's a conflict within Ukraine as to whether they should be self-ruled or Russian ruled.

'Of course, Russia has invaded so there's a tension in the area. We're examining that tension in the Crimea.”

A six-metre by seven-metre carpet was painted black and white to depict a chess board in which the students performed on.

St Cuthbert's College took out first place with their performance ‘Eurydice' and Henderson High School came second with their performance of ‘Success has no divide”.

Event Manager, Sarah-Jane Phillips says, 'St Cuthbert's College blew us away tonight, they gave 100%, in each move they did! I loved watching their performance!”

Production Judge, Braydon Priest says, 'It was a great use of levels. I love that you gave everyone a character!”