In just a couple of days, several Greene County High School students will be heading to the Des Moines Civic Center to officially receive the school’s first-ever awards for a musical.

Choir Director David Heupel says “The Addams Family Musical” earned lots of awards from the Iowa High School Musical Theater Awards including two Outstanding Performance in a Principal Role to Ava Schilling for her portrayal of Morticia Addams and Gavin Vander Linden playing Gomez Addams. Lucy Vander Linden played Fester Addams and earned the Special Recognition for Performance in a Principal Role, and the main cast received a Distinguished Scene Award for “Full Disclosure Part 1.” 

Heupel says to be considered for these recognitions, high schools had to register early last fall and then IHSMTA notified him of when the judges would be at the performances. He explains part of the reason he didn’t enter the IHSMTA before was because several students who are involved in music already do lots of judged competitions.

“And I always felt like the musical is just something where it can just be ours, just kind of our own thing. The other part of it is that I know the awards are so late in the school year and I thought, ‘Well, that’s really not something I want to add to the schedule right at the end of the school year.’ But so many other teachers have said it’s such a good format in how they do it. It’s such a great way to have kids improve, and I thought, ‘We’ll give it a try this year.’”     

Another portion of the showcase happening on Thursday is a triple threat program that Gavin and Schilling are doing.

“It’s the only competitive part of this whole Musical Theater Awards. They have to do a 32-measure cut of one of their songs, along with a 2.5 minute audition piece from a different musical. The Triple Threat students also participate in something called ‘The Triple Threat Medley.’ But what I can imagine, the students that are doing this across the state have got to be just loaded with talent.”     

The IHSMTA Showcase is Thursday at 7pm. Limited tickets are available by clicking the link below. Iowa Public Broadcasting will also provide a livestream of the showcase.