Camp Broadway Hosts 2013 Gershwin Awards at CAP21 Tonight

Camp Broadway and CAP 21: America's Musical Theatre Conservatory & Theatre Company in partnership with The Broadway Education Alliance presents the 3rd annual Gershwin Awards to celebrate outstanding achievement in musical theater performance by students attending public and private high schools throughout the New York City Metropolitan Area.

High schools located in the New York Metropolitan have been invited to nominate a student performer who has played the leading character role in a musical presented at the school during the 2012 - 2013 academic year. A panel of Broadway professionals including Broadway Producer, Hal Luftig, CAP21 co-founder Eliza Ventura, Musical Supervisor David Chase (Nice Work If You Can Get It, Cinderella) and Casting Agent Cesar Rocha from Telsey + Company, will select two student winners of The Gershwin Award in the category of Best Performance by a Lead Actor and Best Performance by a Lead Actress after evaluating their participation in a series of group workshops, an interview, and a performance audition. This year the panel will also award one Actor and Actress the Up and Comer award for their excellent work in their programs. This workshop event will be held tonight, May 18 from 9:00 am - 6:00 pm at CAP21 Studios (18 West 18th Street, between 5th and 6th Avenues).

The Gershwin Award winner of Best Performance by a Lead Actor and Best Performance by a Lead Actress will receive $1,000 each and a scholarship to CAP21's Pre-College Musical Theater Training Program. This five-week intensive course in the field of musical theater performance places equal emphasis on acting, singing, and dancing www.cap21.org/summer_program). In addition, The Gershwin Award-winners will represent New York City in the 5th Annual National High School Theatre Awards on Monday, July 1st, 2013 at the Minskoff Theatre, the culmination of an all-expense paid 6-day performance enrichment program held in New York City.

The National High School Musical Theater Award was established in 2009 by The Nederlander Producing Company and the Pittsburgh CLO to provide high school students with a once in a lifetime experience of performing on Broadway. In 2012, the project touched nearly 50,000 students from over 1,000 schools. Sixty winners from across America came to New York City for 6 days of coaching, auditions and rehearsals in preparation for their Broadway debut. Two talented students received "The Jimmy Award," named in honor of Broadway theatre owner and producer James M. Nederlander, for his vision and generous support of young artists, and an educational scholarship. Through The Gershwin Award, named after lifelong New Yorkers George and Ira Gershwin, New York City Metropolitan area students have the opportunity to participate in this national program.

For news and information on The Gershwin Awards and The National High School Musical Theater Awards, visit www.GershwinAwards.com and www.NHSMTA.com.

WHO'S WHO IN THE PROJECT:

CAMP BROADWAY, Broadway's original summer camp for theatre-loving kids. Founded in 1995, has grown into a year round leader in theatre arts programming, special events administration, and curriculum development as publisher of StageNotes: A Field Guild For Teachers. The company serves as a vital link between Broadway's many theatrical productions, estates and libraries to families, schools and social organizations. Now in its 15th year, Camp Broadway has hosted almost 17,000 children ages 6-18 from every state and over 40 countries at its annual summer camps in New York and has provided first time Broadway show experiences to over 250,000 students through its workshops and community outreach programs. Camp Broadway is the recipient of the 2002 Standing Ovation Award from the Educational Theatre Association and has performed in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and a Carnegie Hall with The New York Pops. Camp Broadway is dedicated to presenting programs that promote life-long learning through the performing arts.

COLLABORTIVE ARTS PROJECT 21, a.k.a. CAP21, was founded in 1993 by Frank and Eliza Ventura to create a home where theatre artists could bring their work to life and continue honing their skills in a collaborative environment. As a professional theatre company with a conservatory, CAP21 is dedicated to creating new work, developing new talent and building new audiences. CAP21 replenishes the American musical theatre by training the next generation of performers and infusing the entertainment industry at large with talent and source material. The goal is to create programs that achieve substantial and lasting contributions to the future of the arts.

Every CAP21 endeavor embraces the following values:

-collaboration and exchange between emerging and accomplished artists

-a nurturing support system

-an infusion of the traditional with the innovative

-a commitment to serving and cultivating a diverse audience

As a producing organization, CAP21 began in 1994 and continues to provide programming for new works for production at CAP21 or to move on and be produced at venues in New York and around the country. Each season, three new works are produced for a two-week "work in progress" run. In addition CAP21 works in development with twenty new musicals and plays providing public and in-house readings. CAP21's season features diverse offerings of new and classic plays and musicals for a multi-generational audience of more than 3,800 people from the greater New York metropolitan area. Nearly 200 theatre artists are engaged each year to create and present new and classic work. The CAP21 Conservatory provides an in-depth actor training program specializing in musical theatre performance. The school, which began in 1994, is now an internationally recognized musical theatre conservatory. Currently, through its various programs, the Conservatory annually trains over 400 emerging performers who come from all over the United States and internationally.