Jelani Alladin, Bob Martin, and More to Judge Roger Rees Awards
(© David Gordon)
The Broadway Education Alliance has announced the 2018-19 student nominees for this year's Roger Rees Awards for Excellence in Student Performance, as well as the judging panel of industry professionals. The awards ceremony and talent showcase will take place on Sunday, May 19, at the Professional Performing Arts School in Manhattan. NY1 reporter Frank DiLella and 2015 Roger Rees- and Jimmy Award-winning Best Actress Marla Louissaint willl host this year's Roger Rees Awards.
Fifty students (25 men and 25 women) are representing 40 high schools located throughout the Greater New York area that have presented an officially licensed production of a Broadway musical during the 2018-19 academic year. This year, 152 students who performed a qualifying role in an eligible musical have been adjudicated by a team of three educational and theater industry professionals who attended each school production. For the complete list of nominees, click here.
This year's panel of judges include Broadway star Jelani Alladin (Frozen), Tony Award-winning Broadway producer Nancy Nagel Gibbs (Wicked), Tony winner Bob Martin (The Prom), Patricia Simon (coordinator of the musical theater program at Marymount Manhattan College), and casting director Merri Sugarman (Ain't Too Proud — The Life and Times of the Temptations). They will determine the Best Actor and Best Actress in Greater New York. Kyra Selman, a member of the musical theater faculty at the Studio School in Los Angeles, will award a scholarship to the school's pre-college summer program to one participating student.
The award-winning students will represent the Greater New York region at the Broadway League Foundation's National High School Musical Theatre Awards, or Jimmy Awards, in June.
The Roger Rees Awards recognize the importance of theater arts education and celebrate the exceptional life and career-long artistic excellence of Broadway's beloved actor and director, Roger Rees. The legendary Tony-winning actor died in 2015 after a yearlong battle with brain cancer.
