The Roger Rees Awards, Co-Hosted by Andrew Barth Feldman, Announces 2020 Showcase Student Roster

The Broadway Education Alliance has announced the 87-high school students who will participate in the 10th annual Roger Rees Awards for Excellence in Student Performance. Although COVID-19 caused school closings before many spring musicals were presented, BEA's RRA sponsors, Disney Theatrical Group, and Camp Broadway LLC, remained committed to honoring the important work done by theatre teachers and their students in high schools throughout the Greater New York area. In collaboration with the RRA team, teachers at each school nominated two students to represent their officially licensed school production and participate in the 2019-2020 annual competition for the Best Actor and Best Actress award.

The 10th anniversary Roger Rees Awards is being presented as an online special that will be streamed on the Broadway Education Alliance YouTube channel on Monday, June 1 at 7:30 pm, hosted by NY1's Emmy Award®-winning reporter Frank DiLella and 2018 Roger Rees Award and Jimmy Award®-winning Best Actor Andrew Barth Feldman (who made his Broadway debut as Evan in Dear Evan Hanson in 2019). The special will feature ensemble musical numbers performed by ALL students registered for the online program, a salute to Broadway starring the 18 previous Roger Rees Award-winners, the announcement of award finalists and 2019-2020 Roger Rees Award Best Actor and Best Actress winners, and more.

For the Roger Rees Awards Showcase Student Roster -CLICK HERE

To ensure fairness across all students (whether they had completed rehearsals for their show or not), the Roger Rees Awards introduced a new video audition process for this year only. All student submissions were adjudicated by a team of experienced Broadway artists/educators including Kristine Bendul and Tina Marie Casamento, as well as Music Directors Andy Einhorn and David Libby, who selected fifty (50) student Nominees, (25 men and 25 women) to compete for the Best Actor and Best Actor award. A second team of acting coaches including Sean McKnight (The Hybrid Agency), Cynthia Thole (Fairleigh Dickinson University), as well as music directors Isaac Harlan (Broadway Inspiration Voices) and Christine Riley (Marymount Manhattan College) will select the 12 Finalists who will be announced during the presentation.

The PLAYBILLder Award for Marketing and the "You Will Be Found" College Essay Writing Challenge winner, sponsored in partnership with Gotham Writer's and Stacey Mindich (Producer, Dear Evan Hansen), will also be announced.

The Roger Rees Awards recognize the importance of theatre arts education and celebrate the exceptional life and career-long artistic excellence of Broadway's beloved actor/director, Roger Rees. Throughout his life, Roger Rees was a committed educator and generous mentor to young artists. He spent countless hours in rehearsals and classrooms coaching aspiring writers, actors and directors on character development, craft, collaboration and the vast cannon of theatrical works.

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