Last night, Jo Schuman Silver-producer of Steve Silver's Beach Blanket Babylon-announced the three Bay Area high school winners of The Steve Silver Foundation & Beach Blanket Babylon 2018 "Scholarship for the Arts."
Out of the nine finalists who performed in the live competition at Club Fugazi, Joshua Ponton (Dance) from Oakland School of the Arts in Oakland performing to "One in 300" from Passacaglia by Bach, Nina Point Dujour (Acting) from Marin Oaks High School in Novato performing a monologue from Ruined by
Lynn Nottage, and Barbara De Veaux-Griffith (Voice) from Oakland School of the Arts in Oakland, performin "I'm Here" from the musical The Color Purple, each walked away last night with $15,000 towards their college education.
The celebrity panel of judges included: choreographer Val Caniparoli, Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter
Tracy Chapman, actor, playwright and talk show host Brian Copeland, American political satirist
Will Durst, composer and philanthropist Gordon Getty, famed opera composer
Jake Heggie, SFJAZZ Center's Founder and Executive Artistic Director Randall Kline, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts' Chief of Civic Engagement
Jonathan Moscone, San Francisco Opera's General Director Matthew Shilvock, Z Space Theater's Artistic Director Lisa Steindler, KCBS AM & FM's Jan Wahl, and original member of The Go-Go's
Jane Wiedlin.
Steve Silver's Beach Blanket Babylon has a long-standing commitment to philanthropic efforts in the community and has been involved with numerous charities and organizations including UCSF Cancer Center, Make-A-Wish Foundation, Child Abuse Prevention Society, AIDS Emergency Fund, Delancey Street Foundation, and Meals on Wheels San Francisco, among others.
For more information on the scholarship program visit
www.beachblanketbabylon.com/scholarship.
