50 Student Nominees Announced for the 2025 Roger Rees Awards

The Broadway Education Alliance has just announced the 50 nominees for Outstanding Performer in a qualifying role in an officially licensed high school production presented during the 2024-2025 academic year. This year’s nominees represent 80 high schools across 13 counties throughout the Greater New York area including the Bronx, Dutchess, Kings (Brooklyn), Nassau, New York (Manhattan), Orange, Putnam, Queens, Rockland, Suffolk, Ulster and Westchester. 

Acclaimed Broadway performer Kevin Del Aguila will host the 2024-25 Roger Rees Awards for Excellence in Student Performance which will be held on Monday, May 19, 2025 at Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway (at 95th Street, Manhattan) at 7:00 pm. Sponsored by Disney Theatrical Group and the hit new Broadway musical Smash, the showcase will feature 50 Roger Rees Awards nominees who will perform a musical medley that celebrates NYC 400 (commemorating the founding of New York), and a song from Smash. 

Guest conductor Rick Hip-Flores (Bad Cinderella, Ain’t Too Proud) will direct students from Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts Orchestra, the winner of the 2025 New York City Center High School Orchestra Award, who will accompany the showcase opening and closing musical number. This year’s Roger Rees Awards showcase will also feature a performance by Cantare of LaGuardia High School, the 60-member choir also from Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School, the winner of the 2025 Harmony Helper Award for Excellence in Choral Group Performance. 

The Roger Rees Awards panel of judges for the 15th annual awards presentation includes Kiara Brown Clark (Teaching Artist, Disney Theatrical Group); Jenny Gersten (Artistic Director, New York City Center); Beth Leavel, (Tony Award-winning actress); Michael Moore (literary and creative agent, The Michael Moore Agency); Merri Sugarman (casting director, The TRC Company); Conrad Ricamora (2025 Tony Award® nominee, Oh, Mary); and Marc Shaiman (acclaimed composer/lyricist, Smash). 

Two students selected by this panel of Broadway experts will represent the Greater New York region at The Broadway League Foundation’s The Jimmy Awards® (also known as the National High School Musical Theatre Awards®) on June 23, 2025 at the Minskoff Theatre.  

To reach the Roger Rees Awards showcase, hundreds of student performers went through an extensive adjudication process including an audition and masterclass at partnering educational institutions, namely Long Island University Post (Long Island), Marymount Manhattan College (Manhattan) and Rockland Community College (Westchester). A panel of theater professionals led by RRA Artistic Director, Theo Lencicki selected 50 students who participate in a 3-day pre-award intensive in solo and ensemble performance taught by Broadway professional coaches including Hunter Ryan Herdlicka (A Little Night Music), Jessie Hooker Bailey (Waitress); Donna Vivino (Wicked) and Correy West (Ain’t Too Proud), as well as music directors Isaac Harlan (Broadway Inspirational Voices), Sean Mayes (Hadestown), Julianne B. Merrill (Some Like It Hot), and Drew Wutke (Harlem Nocturne). This team will identify the 12 Roger Rees Awards finalists who will perform a solo from their high school musical for the award judges. 

The Roger Rees Awards will also recognize New Faces | 2025, a roster of 30 talented students selected by members of the Casting Society (CSA) as emerging solo performing artists to watch.  

In addition to performance awards, the Roger Rees Awards will recognize student costume and scenic designers and include three student stage managers on the showcase Production Team. BroadwayWorld will with present The Roger Rees Awards pre-show featuring the program’s winning student journalist, Chloe Pusey, who will co-host the special with Richard Ridge on Monday, May 19 from 5:30 pm – 6:30 pm. Visit https://www.youtube.com/@broadwayworldtv to watch the special.

The Roger Rees Awards showcase is directed and choreographed by Theo Lencicki with music direction by Christine Riley.  

2025 Roger Rees Awards Outstanding Performer Award Nominees

Andrew Adams
Fordham Preparatory School

Allison Angell
W.T. Clarke High School

Justin Bocian
Plainview-Old Bethpage John F. Kennedy High School

Jack Ceglie
Long Island High School for the Arts

Jack Chambers
Manhasset High School

Haylie Christiano
Nyack High School

Miles Cohen
Herricks High School

Siena Cottone
The Knox School

Joel Crump
Léman Manhattan Preparatory School

Winter Donnelly
Xavier High School

Jonah Espinosa
Beacon High School

Addison Fried
Bay Shore Senior High School

Ashlee Fucarino
Wantagh High School

Matthew Gennings
West Babylon Senior High School

Joshua Gorlin
Monroe-Woodbury High School

William Herbert
Farmingdale High School

Lorenzo Hilliard
Wantagh High School

Logan Kay
Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School for Music and Art & Performing Arts

Grace Kiamie
Fordham Preparatory School

Mackenzie Kling
Mount Sinai High School

Tyler Landusky
Monroe-Woodbury High School

Dylan LeMaire
West Babylon Senior High School

Hannah Levine
Sanford H. Calhoun High School

Elena Lieto
Arlington High School

Sophia Manalang
Ardsley High School

Gloria Manning
Professional Performing Arts School

Jeronnie McDougald
Bay Shore Senior High School

Evangeline McGinley
Suffern High School

Harrison McNeill
Professional Performing Arts School

Sara Nearenberg
Locust Valley High School

Caelyn Osbern
Léman Manhattan Preparatory School

Lucette Ow
Pelham Memorial High School

Eliana Panoff
Suffern High School

Kimont Person
Valley Stream Central High School

Haley Polidore
Roy C. Ketcham High School

Olivia Potorti
Brooklyn High School of the Arts

Camilla Riggs
The Stony Brook School

Jesse Rogers
New Explorations into Science, Technology, and Math High School (NEST+m)

Tatiana Rossello
Valley Stream Central High School

Colin Rubsamen
Pleasantville High School

Robert Silverstein
Farmingdale High School

Olive Spence
Edward R. Murrow High School

Conor Stack
South Side High School

Hanako Stepper
Trinity School

Lindsay Stroller
John L. Miller Great Neck North High School

Margaret Stuckey
Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School for Music and Art & Performing Arts

Emma Suhr
Southamption High School

Leonidas Tirella
St Francis Prep

Emma Van Dorpe
Nyack High School

Kelsy Vargas
Nyack High School

The Broadway Education Alliance is the presenting producer for The Roger Rees Awards which is sponsored by Disney Theatrical Group. This year’s program is made possible through the generous support from Rick Elice, Nancy Nagel Gibbs, Theatrical Rights Worldwide, The Goren Family Foundation, Anant Das, Douglas Denoff, Merrie L. Davis, Broadway Association, Broadway Plus, Broadway Inbound, Broadway HD, Broadway.com, Music Theater International, Six, Withum, and many other industry leaders working in/around Broadway.  

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." 

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