Kevin Del Aguila Will Host the 2025 Roger Rees Awards

The Broadway Education Alliance has just announced that multi-award-winning Broadway performer Kevin Del Aguila will host the 2024-25 Roger Rees Awards for Excellence in Student Performance on Monday, May 19, 2025 at Peter Norton Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway (at 95th Street), New York.                 

Presented annually by the Broadway Education Alliance and Disney Theatrical Group, this year’s showcase will feature over 170 high school student performers, musicians, solo artists, stage managers, designers and journalist representing 80 area schools located within 13 Greater New York counties including the Bronx, Dutchess, Kings (Brooklyn), Nassau, New York (Manhattan), Orange, Putnam, Queens, Rockland, Suffolk, Ulster and Westchester. 

Marc Shaiman, Tony Award-winning composer/lyricist of Broadway’s newest hit musical Smash, joins a distinguished panel of judges who will select this seasons’ Outstanding Performers from a roster of 50 nominees who have performed a qualifying role in an officially licensed high school production of an eligible musical. The panel also includes Kiara Brown Clark (Teaching Artist, Disney Theatrical Group); Jenny Gersten (VP & Artistic Director, New York City Center); Beth Leavel (Tony Award-winning actress), Michael Moore (literary and creative agent), Conrad Ricamora (award-winning actor of television, film and actor, Oh, Mary), and Merri Sugarman (casting director, The TRC Company).

The Roger Rees Awards is the Greater New York Regional Award for The Broadway League Foundation’s National High School Musical Theatre Awards aka The Jimmy Awards®. Two students selected by this panel of Broadway experts will represent the Greater New York region at the national awards on June 23nd at the Minskoff Theatre on Broadway. 

Other award categories include Choral Performance presented by the Goren Family Foundation, Outstanding Journalism sponsored by BroadwayWorld, New Faces | 2025 in Solo Performance selected by members of the Casting Society; Excellence in Innovative Education presented by Theatrical Rights Worldwide and Broadway Inbound, Excellence in Scenic and Costume Design as well as Best Orchestra sponsored by New York City Center Education & Community Engagement Department. In partnership with the Stage Managers’ Association, three students will serve as Fellows and gain invaluable work experience as Assistant Stage Managers on the award Production Team. 

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. Playwright 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."

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.