It was nothing but hoots and hollers and unbridled displays of youthful enthusiasm that flooded Benaroya Hall the other night. And it had nothing to do with the symphonic music about ample buttocks that filled the venue a few days earlier.
Instead the occasion was the 2014 5th Avenue Awards honoring high school musical theater. Two thousand teenaged theater geeks and their educators celebrating one another.
Naomi Morgan (in black dress) and a couple of hundred other high schoolers from across the state in the opening number of The 2014 5th Avenue Awards. Photo: Tracy Martin.
“If only we could bottle that enthusiasm,” Holly Arsenault, executive director of TeenTix, tweeted afterwards.
The 5th Avenue launched the awards 12 years ago. Its motivation was part outreach effort and part Let’s give equal props to theater kids the way folks tout high school athletes.
“The reason why sports gets funded is they win trophies,” explained Bill Berry, the 5th’s producing artistic director who spearheaded the event. After a couple of years, “we started getting letters from teachers saying they were now getting support from their principal and their school board,” Berry said.
When theater board members have attended the ceremony for the first time, Berry has, on occasion, handed out earplugs. “It’s atomic out there,” he warned, and he was right: the whooping and the cheering are so loud and infectious, even the crew backstage can’t help but smile. (I saw them do so; I was invited to co-present the “Best Costume Design” award).
