Sitting in the auditorium in fancy dresses and suits, 31 theater students wait in anticipation for the musicals for the 2015-2016 school year to be announced. Theater Director Kim Brueggemann walks onto the stage with fellow director Larry Hensley and chorus teacher Julie Parrish to announce the musicals.

“After considering the department’s budgets and previous shows, we are pleased to announce two new shows that we have not done before. The spring show will be ‘Curtains’ and the fall show will be ‘The Addams Family Musical’,” Brueggemann said at the the banquet.

“Curtains” is a murder mystery musical while “The Addams Family Musical” is a comedic musical about an American family.

Prior years, the theater department would gather for dinner and notify students of the musicals for the following year. In addition to the theater dinner, students walked the “red carpet” to the awards show for the student’s hard work. The awards were introduced for the first time this year by President of the International Thespian Society at JC, sophomore Zach Miller.

In advance of the banquet theater students voted for their fellow peers in seven categories including technical award, most outstanding newcomer, best dancer, best supporting actress, best supporting actor, best actress, and best actor.

Some winners include senior Mark Griffin for the technical award, seniors Glen Dixon and Robert Hodges for the most outstanding newcomer, and senior Samantha Wieczynski for the best dancer.

Senior Emma Kleinburg and Erin Sullivan sang their favorite songs from the past musicals. These performances made it similar to an actual award show such as Tony Awards.

Other winners include senior Nicole Arrison for best supporting actress, senior Scott Walczyk for best supporting actor, senior Erin Sullivan for best actress, and senior Brady Fritz for best actor.

Kleinburg sang By My Side from Godspell while Sullivan sang Pharaoh’s Story from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

The students waited till the end of the night for the shows to be announced.

“I’m super excited for “Curtains.” The spring show sounds great from what I’ve heard too, even though I don’t know the story. Overall I’m excited that we are less popular musicals for this upcoming year,” junior Brooke Vogel said.

Sydney Kirwan is an In-Depth Editor for The Patriot and jcpatriot.com.