Before there can be winners of the 2024 Metro Awards ‒ honoring achievements by participating high school musicals from Westchester, Rockland, Putnam and Bergen counties ‒ there must be nominees.
This year's Metro nominations will be announced in a webcast live from the stage of last year's venue — Tarrytown Music Hall — on lohud.com, the exclusive media sponsor of the Metros. The webcast is at 7 p.m., Tuesday, May 14.
Producers Blake Spence and Jordan Singer will join lohud's Peter D. Kramer in announcing the nominees in dozens of categories, from lobby display and student critic to outstanding overall production, the Metros' big prize. The webcast will also name this year's hosts for the Metros.
Judges fanned out across the region to take in performances from January to May at participating schools, and students in technical categories submitted portfolios for review. Not every school musical is considered for the Metros; schools must pay to enter the competition.
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The Metro Awards will be bestowed at a ceremony June 10 from the stage of the massive Concert Hall at Purchase Performing Arts Center, which can seat 1,372 screaming musical fans.
Who participated in the Metro Awards this year?
Here is the list of schools participating in the 2024 Metro Awards, by county:
Westchester (29 schools): Archbishop Stepinac, “Catch Me If You Can”; Blind Brook, “Mamma Mia!”; Briarcliff, “Chicago”; Dobbs Ferry, “Fiddler on the Roof”; Eastchester, “The Addams Family”; Greeley, “The Addams Family”; Harrison, “Mean Girls”; Hastings, “Urinetown”; Hendrick Hudson, “The Little Mermaid”; Kennedy Catholic, “Matilda”; Lakeland, “Chicago”; Leffell School, “Freaky Friday”; Mamaroneck, “Newsies”; Masters School, “Into the Woods”; New Rochelle, “Young Kind of Love”; North Salem, “Hello, Dolly!”; Ossining, “Sister Act”; Pelham, “Into the Woods”; Pleasantville, “Footloose”; Port Chester, “Legally Blonde”; Rye, “Mamma Mia!”; Rye Country Day, “Into the Woods”; Rye Neck, “Beauty and the Beast”; Sleepy Hollow, “Cinderella”; Somers, “The Addams Family”; Tuckahoe, “Annie”; Valhalla High School, “Footloose”; Westlake, “Beauty and the Beast”; White Plains, “Fiddler on the Roof.”
Bergen (25 schools): Academy of the Holy Angels, “Urinetown”; Bergen County Academies, “Something Rotten!”; Bergenfield, “Once on This Island”; Don Bosco, “Guys and Dolls”; Dumont, “Mean Girls”; Dwight-Englewood, “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee”; Fair Lawn, “Legally Blonde”; Fort Lee, “Mean Girls”; Glen Rock, “Beauty and the Beast”; Immaculate Heart Academy, “Mamma Mia!”; Lodi, “Spamalot!”; Lyndhurst, “Legally Blonde”; Mahwah, “Les Miserables”; Midland Park, “The Addams Family”; New Milford, “Beauty and the Beast”; Northern Highlands, “Mamma Mia!”; Northern Valley/Old Tappan: “Cats”; Pascack Hills, “Cinderella”; Pascack Valley, “High School Musical”; Ramapo (NJ), “The Drowsy Chaperone”; Ramsey, “Legally Blonde”; Rutherford, “The Lightning Thief”; Saddle River Day School, “Shrek”; St. Joseph Regional, “Les Miserables”; Westwood, “Annie.”
Rockland (6 schools): Clarkstown North, “The Addams Family”; Clarkstown South, “Newsies”; North Rockland, “Chicago”; Nyack High School, “Grease”; Ramapo (NY), “Urinetown”; Tappan Zee, “Mamma Mia!”
Putnam (3 schools): Brewster, “Anything Goes”; Carmel, “How to Succeed…”; Putnam Valley, “Rent.”
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A moveable feast, and change of venue
The awards began 25 years ago at Nyack's now-defunct Helen Hayes Theater Company, where Danielle Rudess ran children's programming. When the theater folded, Rudess spun off the wildly popular youth theater into the Helen Hayes Youth Theater and continued to produce the awards.
The honors were affectionately dubbed "The Helens," until the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., protested that its annual awards for D.C. theater were also named for Helen Hayes, the first lady of the American stage, who made her home in Nyack. They then became the generic High School Theater Awards before settling in as the Metropolitan High School Theater Awards, "The Metros" for short.
The ceremony has been held in Nyack, at Caramoor, at Peekskill's Paramount Center for the Arts (now Paramount Hudson Valley), at Archbishop Stepinac High School in White Plains, and at Purchase.
There were even two years when they were held at White Plains PAC and Nyack simultaneously, with a satellite connection linking the two venues. ("The winner in Nyack is....")
Last June, the Metros were held in the 850-seat Music Hall, returning from a three-year COVID hiatus — with new producers Spence and Singer taking the reins from Rudess. Hosts David Josefsberg and Kerri Butler were on hand and 850 screaming fans saw Rye Neck’s production of “Anastasia” awarded outstanding overall production.
Watch the Metro nominations live
What: The nominations for the 2024 Metro Awards.
When: 7 p.m., May 14.
Where: On lohud.com, live from the stage of the Tarrytown Music Hall.
Who: Producers Blake Spence and Jordan Singer will join lohud.com reporter Peter D. Kramer.
Reach Peter D. Kramer at pkramer@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Who'll be nominated for Metro Awards? Webcast announcement set for Tuesday on lohud.com
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