Lyric Stage presented the 15th annual Schmidt & Jones Awards on May 7 at the Moody Performance Hall. Lyric Stage, a Dallas-based 501c3 not-for-profit professional musical theatre company, was established in 1993 with the mission of the development and preservation of the musical, a unique art form. In its thirty-year history, Lyric Stage has produced over 125 productions, which include 21 world-premiere musicals and 2 Off-Broadway shows.
Scott Guenther, Lyric Stage’s general manager, “Established in 2010 and named after renowned composer Harvey Schmidt and lyricist Tom Jones, these awards honor excellence in high school musical theatre across Dallas-Fort Worth. The evening featured performances by nominated schools, productions and performers, and they were amazingly talented.”
Native Texans Harvey Schmidt (composer) and Tom Jones (lyricist) are, perhaps, most known as the creators of the longest running show in the history of the American theatre, The Fantasticks, which ran Off-Broadway for 42 years and 17,162 performances.
In addition to an Obie Award and a special Tony Award for The Fantasticks, Schmidt and Jones were inducted into the Broadway Hall of Fame at the Gershwin Theatre, and their “stars” were added to the Off-Broadway Walk Of Fame outside the Lucille Lortel Theatre. In 2012, they were inducted into the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame and in December of 2017 they received the Oscar Hammerstein Award.
The winners:
BEST SHOW
Denton Guyer High School – Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812
BEST ENSEMBLE
Liberty Christian School – Singing in the Rain
BEST CHOREOGRAPHY
Liberty Christian School – Presley Anderson & Gigi Plisga – Singing in the Rain
BEST LIGHTING DESIGN
Denton Guyer High School – Brayden Dorman, Roseanna Medlock, Anna Quigley –
Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812
BEST SCENIC DESIGN
Denton Guyer High School – Brayden Dorman – Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Rowlett High School – Francine Parcero & Anthony Bedolla – SIX
BEST ORCHESTRA
Wylie High School – Beauty and the Beast
BEST STAGE MANAGER
Fort Worth Academy of Fine Arts – William “Mars” Bartell – Sister Act
Winner of the Ashley Newman-Schneider Scholarship
Newman-Schneider was an influential presence in the DFW theatre community.
BEST ACTOR
Sean Forman as Man in Chair in The Drowsy Chaperone at North Texas Performing Arts Conservatory; Forman also received a $500 scholarship.
BEST ACTRESS
Francine Parcero as Anne Boleyn in SIX at Rowlett High School; Parcero also received a $500 scholarship.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Bradford Arnold as Wolf in Into the Woods at Grapevine High School
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Anya Guidry as Alice Beineke in The Addams Family at Cedar Hill High School
ACTOR IN A MINOR ROLE
Hudson Donnell as LeFou in Beauty and the Beast at Wylie High School
ACTRESS IN A MINOR ROLE
Grace Betts as Race in Newsies Jr at Harvest Christian Academy
MALE ENSEMBLE PERFORMER
Darren Sanders as Featured Dancer in Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812
at Denton Guyer High School
FEMALE ENSEMBLE PERFORMER
Maria Luiza Viana as Flapper Ancestor in The Addams Family at Cedar Hill High School
A panel of judges, consisting of theatre educators and professional theatre artists, viewed 21 productions of the accepted applicants from schools in Dallas, Tarrant and Collin counties. The panel made nominations and then voted to determine winners. The directors of participating schools also received written production evaluations.
The judging panel, adjudicating and awards are organized and led by the director of the Schmidt and Jones Awards, Amy Stevenson, who is well-known in Dallas-Fort Worth as both an artist and educator.
source: press release
