Maddie Hendricks
Q: What are Blue Star awards?
A: The Blue Star Awards are a high school awards program for theatre in the KC Metro area. They are at Starlight [theatre] every year, and it’s to recognize our achievements and hard work in theatre at our schools.
Q: What were you nominated for?
A: [I was nominated for] ceremony ensemble. For that we have to go into rehearsals in the next few weeks to learn a dance and the number, and then we’ll perform it at the ceremony.
Q: How did you react to getting nominated?
A: I was very excited. I was nominated for ceremony ensemble last year, too, so I’m excited to go and perform in the ceremony this year and hopefully be up for the scholarship.
Q: What are the next steps?
A: The next steps are either if you are nominated for something where you have to go and do rehearsals, you go and do rehearsals, and then other than that, we’ll all go to the ceremony on May 21 at Starlight.
Q: What has the school won in the past?
A: In previous years, we have been nominated for a whole bunch of different things, including best overall performance for “Mean Girls” and best ensemble for a few shows. In the past, Mia Cabrera won [a] Jimmy [nomination] and lead performance, and then Cameron Hargrove last year won senior rising star scholarship.
Aliyah Lawrence
Q: How do you get nominated for an award?
A: For the musical that you want to get nominated for, the Blue Star adjudicators come and see one or multiple of the shows, and they give you comments and write down notes and everything, whether that be positive comments or criticism. And then those adjudicators decide what awards your production will be nominated for. Those can be individual awards, like outstanding supporting actor in a musical or outstanding lead role or something. It could be individual, or they can also be group nominations, like outstanding technical crew or outstanding ensemble or best overall production. You can also self-submit for a couple of them.
Q: What were you nominated for?
A: I was nominated for the junior rising star scholarship and Blue Star ceremony ensemble. For the junior rising star scholarship, I had to write an essay about how high school theatre has impacted my life, and it actually came really easy to me because the theatre has impacted me in so many positive ways, and I’ve grown so much because of it. It ultimately is what I want to do in my future, and I found that out through high school theatre, so I wrote an essay about that. I also got a letter of recommendation from Mr. [Jordan] Foote, basically saying why I … should be considered for the scholarship. And for ceremony ensemble, I went in one day and I did an audition. We had a dance audition and a singing audition. You auditioned in a big group with a lot of people from the area that want to be considered for ceremony ensemble, and you go in and you learn a big dance number, and then you perform it for the adjudicators. And then you sing your songs individually, sing just like a little cut of a musical theater song … I sang “My Petersburg” from “Anastasia,” which is, fun fact, originally a male song, but I made it mine.
Q: How did you react to getting nominated?
A: Honestly, I didn’t really expect the scholarship. I thought I had a pretty good chance of ceremony ensemble just because I felt my audition went pretty well. But the scholarship, I was like, “there’s so many people that are getting that, so many people always write essays for it and there’s so many talented people in this area. I’m probably not going to get nominated,” but I saw my name on the banner twice and I was like, “oh, my God, I did it.” So that was really cool to see.
Q: How do you find out if you win?
A: There is one day, usually late April early May, where people from the Blue Star Awards come to your school and they have banners, and there’s a whole ceremony kind of thing where they unveil the banners and they have your names written on them and the things that you are nominated for. It’s actually really fun and really cool every single year because you’re sitting there waiting in anticipation because you see the banner, but they’re like not unrolling it yet. You’re like, “can you just open it already?”
Q: What are you looking forward to?
A: I’m really looking forward to getting to perform on the Starlight stage because it is such a cool experience. I got to do it my freshman year for “Mean Girls” because we got nominated for best overall production. But this year, having the opportunity to perform in the ceremony ensemble is just so cool because I’ll get to be alongside a ton of other really talented performers from all around the area, a lot of them being my friends actually … It’ll be so much fun getting to perform with some of my best friends on a professional stage where a lot of Broadway productions come and perform.
