Ten young men and ten young women compete for our Best Actor and Best Actress Awards. Others seek Best Supporting Actor and Actress trophies. Five schools perform on stage hoping to win one of our production prizes. It’s an absolutely electric night in the theater celebrating New Mexico's high school theater programs and the work they produce! We are an awards program by name and an education program by nature. We teach the students who come to us for the awards show. We provide evaluations for students and theater programs to the teachers. We give internships to technical students to work alongside our professional staff. We teach workshops throughout the state.
An awards show by name but an education program by nature, we recognize and honor the contributions high school theater programs make to the lives of students, as potential artists and as future citizens. We recognize individual artistry in performance, and honor teachers and their schools’ commitment to performing arts education. We offer talented young performers an opportunity to advance their education/careers in musical theatre and related arts by sending two students annually to the national Jimmy Awards.
We know that theater programs support lessons from other classrooms. You can’t design a set or a costume without algebra and geometry. You can’t design lights or sound without physics. You can’t play a part without language skills and sociology. Every theater production is a business enterprise with a budget, a goal, and several committees all finding creative solutions to problems as they arise. Many theater productions are an immersive history project. While plays are most often fiction, they are often set in the factual past.
Drama students graduate at a higher rate than their peers, earn better grades, and score better on standardized tests. Our program highlights the academic and artistic accomplishments of drama programs and the students in them.
933 San Mateo NE, #500-221