The Tony Awards for Connecticut high school theatre
St. Luke's School came home with two of evening's top prizes at the Seven Angel's Halo Awards this past Tuesday evening.
The school was honored to receive the Best Contemporary Play award for their production of Alfred Hitchcock's "The 39 Steps." In addition, their production of Sarah DeLappe's "The Wolves" took home the Fearless Award given to a production that was ambitious, pushed boundaries, challenged the audience, and went beyond what you would typically find in a high school production.
The Halo Awards are the equivalent of the Tonys for high school theatre and honors the very best high school productions in Connecticut. This marks the third time in four years where St. Luke's School has taken home the top "Best Play" prize of the evening. St. Luke's School's production of "The 39 Steps" was a high energy, high tempo comedy that delighted audiences with its zany, over-the-top performances and "The Wolves" was only the third licensed high school production of this very ambitious and edgy material.
"Comedy is always difficult to pull off well and 'The 39 Steps' demanded a precision from our entire ensemble. I asked alot of them and they delivered," Jason Peck, Director of Theatre Arts of St. Luke's School commented, "We've always prided ourselves on choosing daring material that challenges both our theatrical artists and our school wide community. To be celebrated and acknowledged for producing and staging "The Wolves" was such an honor."
"We are a relatively small school compared to other schools competing but it goes to show that talent, passion, vision, and determination knows no bounds."
This year the school received thirteen nominations in total for both productions that were judged. While Peck thinks the awards are such fun he added, "The idea of awards in theatre run somewhat counter to the purpose of theatre. While many things good have been written about why people go to the theatre, I believe they all center around understanding our humanity and finding places where we can all have mutual respect and agreement with each another. This idea is somewhat antithetical to competition. The Halo Awards were founded to find a place where high school theatre lovers from different backgrounds could come together, find, and celebrate our mutual respect and admiration for each other. I want to make sure in the process of crowning 'winners' we never lose sight of this."
Next year's St. Luke's Upper School has a very ambitious season planned including the first ever licensed high school production of Josh Harmon's "Admissions," a docudrama about Newtown called "26 Pebbles" and the Stephen Schwartz musical "Pippin, among others.