15th Annual Roger Rees Awards Find a New Home at Symphony Space

 BroadwayWorld has just learned that The Broadway Education Alliance will present the 15th annual Roger Rees Awards for Excellence in Student Performance on Monday, May 19th at the Peter Norton Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway at 95th Street in New York City. The event begins at 7:00 pm. 

The Roger Rees Awards, produced by BEA and Disney Theatrical Group, features the Outstanding Performer Award that recognizes students who have performed a leading role in an officially licensed high school musical production. Two students selected by a panel of leading Broadway professionals will represent the Greater New York region at The Broadway League Foundation’s Jimmy Awards® (The National High School Musical Theatre Awards®) on June 23, 2025, at the Minskoff Theatre.

Other recognition categories at the Roger Rees Awards includes the Harmony Helper® Choral Award sponsored by the Goren Family Foundation celebrating excellence in choral group performance; New Faces | 2025 for solo performers in any arts discipline, presented in association with the Casting Society of America; and the Student Journalism Award sponsored by BroadwayWorld. 

The New York City Center Education & Community Engagement Department will also confer a scenic and costume design award, as well as sponsor the student orchestra who will be featured at the event.

To be eligible to participate in the Roger Rees Awards, a high school must present an officially licensed high school musical production and be located within the Greater New York area which encompasses 13 New York counties including the Bronx, Dutchess, Kings (Brooklyn), Nassau, New York (Manhattan), Orange, Putnam, Queens, Rockland, Suffolk, Ulster and Westchester.

Learn about names, location and production presented by the 80 high schools participating in the 2024-2025 program.

The Roger Rees Awards is presented with the generous support of many Broadway industry professionals and leading companies including Nancy Nagel Gibbs, Rick Elice, Anant Das, Disney Theatrical Group, BroadwayHD, Broadway Plus, Music Theatre International, Theatrical Rights Worldwide, and many others. 

Previous Roger Rees Awards national honorees include the 2023 Best Actress-winner Lauren Marchand, 2021 Best Actor-finalist Mateo Lizcano, 2019 Best Actress-winner Ekele Ukegbu and scholarship winner Jeremy Fuentes, 2018 Best Actor-winner Andrew Barth Feldman, and 2015 Best Actress-winner Marla Louissaint.  

In addition to recognizing the importance of theater arts education, the program celebrates the exceptional life and career-long artistic excellence of Broadway’s beloved actor/director, Roger Rees. Rees received the Olivier® and Tony® Awards for his performance in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, and Tony nominations for Indiscretions and as co-director of Peter and the Starcatcher. Throughout his life, he was a committed educator and generous mentor to young artists. Rick Elice, Rees’ partner of over 30 years, and author of “Finding Roger,” said, “Rog would have liked this chance to educate and inspire young actors, to offer a guiding hand as so many were offered to him when he too was a kid with a dream." Rees passed away in July 2015 after a year-long battle with brain cancer. He was posthumously inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in November 2015. 

For more information about the program, visit www.rogerreesawards.com

For more information on the Broadway Education Alliance, visit www.BEAlliance.org.