Lake Michigan College will hold its annual WAVE Awards for Excellence in High School Musical Theatre on May 22 at the Mendel Center Jenkins Theatre.
LMC Arts and Sciences Dean Kristopher Zook tells us they started the event to honor all the hard-working students in theater programs throughout southwest Michigan.
“So it’s kind of modeled after the Tony Awards,” Zook said. “We send adjudicators out to the local high schools that choose to participate and give them written feedback, comments, and we score them. And then we announce the nominees, which we did last week.”
Zook says the nominees include school productions and performers from Elkhart to Paw Paw. Seven adjudicators evaluated 10 high schools and about 630 students who participated in high school musical productions in the 2023-2024 academic year.
Zook says it’s always a special night for the students.
“It’s a really great event, lots of wonderful, wonderful performances, and it’s really a coming together of the arts community and kind of letting those students know that they have compatriots at other schools and out there in the community that love what they love.”
Zook says the region has a wealth of student talent that often feeds its robust theater community.
The WAVE Awards ceremony begins May 22 with red carpet arrivals at 6 p.m., followed by the awards, which include musical numbers from Bridgman, Concord, Dowagiac, Edwardsburg, Hartford, Lakeshore, New Buffalo, Paw Paw, Penn, and St. Joseph high schools.
The event is open to the public.
