And the Shuler Hensley Award for excellence in community outreach goes to — envelope, please — the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, for establishing the city's first musical-theater competition for high schools.
Making their debut Tuesday night at the Cobb venue, the Shuler Hensley Awards for Excellence in High School Musical Theatre were a giddy, spirited, red-carpet affair that celebrated and validated the wealth of talent in area schools. To the judges' credit, no single school steamrolled the event: The squiggly crystal trophies — named for Marietta native and Broadway star Hensley — were spread among eight of the 13 nominated groups.
The night's top winner was the Atlanta International School, with four prizes. The Buckhead academy's sophisticated, opulently costumed production of Stephen Sondheim's "Into the Woods" won for best production, direction (Rob Warren), costumes (Sherry Weeks) and supporting actor (Arsalan Akhavan).
"We were so shocked," Warren, head of the school's performing arts program, said Wednesday morning as he boarded a plane with 34 11th-graders, headed to New York for a previously planned field trip.
Atlanta International, the competition's self-proclaimed "underdog," bested Cobb County's arts-magnet powerhouse, Pebblebrook High, which won three Shulers for "Footloose." (Pebblebrook students also picked up two of the evening's three scholarships.)
Chattahoochee High's Jake Moskowitz and Alpharetta High's Erin Borain won the top acting honors. They will compete this summer in the first National High School Musical Theatre Awards at Broadway's Palace Theatre. Hensley opened the show with the title song from "Oklahoma!" — serenading his family in the audience before answering questions from his co-emcee, WSB-TV anchor Jovita Moore.
"I never got to sing that song because, playing Jud Fry, I was always in the smokehouse," Hensley quipped of the role that won him his Tony and Olivier awards. He later joked that the Shuler trophy's curlicues were a reference to his wavy hair.
Kenny Leon, the Atlanta-based Broadway director who runs True Colors Theatre, presented the award for directing. "What you do here helps you become a better doctor, a better lawyer, a better teacher, a better engineer," he told the kids.
Produced and directed by Cobb Energy education director Mark B. Kent and the Earl Smith Strand Theatre's Earl Reece (former head of Pebblebook's performing arts program), the show began about 25 minutes late but was virtually glitch free.
"After tonight," Hensley said, "it's safe to say that musical theater is alive and well and thriving in the great state of Georgia."
WSB-TV will broadcast a program about the Shulers on May 29 at 8 p.m.
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