Jake Fruend Wins New Line Theater's First Musical Theatre $1,500 Scholarship

New Line Theatre, "The Bad Boy of Musical Theatre," announces the recipient of their first musical theatre scholarship, Jake Fruend, a senior at Webster Groves High School. The $1,500 scholarship is funded by proceeds from New Line's January concert at the Sheldon Concert Hall, "Night of the Living Show Tunes." Judith Newmark, senior theatre critic for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, selected the winner from ten applications.

Fruend has been active in the Webster Groves High School Drama Department, under the training of Sarah Romanowski and Todd Schaefer, and he has appeared onstage in Seussical the Musical, Dracula, Urinetown, You Can't Take It With You, You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, and in various revues. He has also directed and written one-act plays. In the fall, Jake plans to attend Columbia College in Chicago, where he'll major in musical theatre.

"We've been wanting to offer a scholarship for years," says New Line artistic director Scott Miller." But our operating budget is always so tight, there's never been room to carve out money for a scholarship. This year, we finally figured out how to do it, and we couldn't be happier to offer this small help to a young artist who wants to pursue work in the musical theatre. Musical theatre is one of the few indigenous American art forms and it's never been more vigorous or more adventurous than it is right now. It's an amazing time to be working in the American musical theatre."

New Line Theatre is a professional company dedicated to involving the people of the St. Louis region in the exploration and creation of daring, provocative, socially and politically relevant works of musical theatre. New Line receives funding from the Regional Arts Commission, the Fox Performing Arts Charitable Foundation, and the Missouri Arts Council. For more about New Line, go to www.newlinetheatre.com/contact.html

New Line's next show is the first St. Louis production of 'The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee," running July 16-August 8. For more information, visit www.newlinetheatre.com or call 314-534-1111.

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