Musical Theatre West’s (MTW) Footlighters Guild recently announced the winners of its annual Footlighters Scholarship competition. Each year the Musical Theatre West Footlighters present five $1,000 scholarships to high-school students in the Los Angeles County and Orange County school districts. This year 41 students representing 21 high schools auditioned.
The participating schools were: Central LA HS #9, Cleveland High School, Huntington Beach Academy for the Performing Arts, La Habra High School, Lakewood High School, Los Alamitos High School, Los Angeles High School of the Arts, Millikan High School, Mission Viejo High School, Orange County High School of the Arts, Pacifica High School, Palos Verdes High School, Renaissance High School, Rosary High School, San Juan Hills High School, South Gate High School, South High School, Torrance High School, Valley Christian High School, Warren High School and Wilson High School.
Winners of the Footlighters $1000 scholarship are Jessamyn Arnstein from Central LA HS #9, Elizabeth Romero and Jacob Gonzalez from Huntington Beach Academy for the Performing Arts, Landon Zwick from Orange County High School of the Performing Arts, and Bren Johnson from San Juan Hills High School. The Footlighters will host an awards ceremony for these students on June 18.
 Two of the five winners were selected to represent Musical Theatre West and participate in the National High School Musical Theater Awards (NHSMTA), also known as the Jimmy™ Awards, in New York City on June 27 at the Marquis Theatre on Broadway. Elizabeth Romero will represent Best Actress for her role as Millie in Thoroughly Modern Millie, and Jacob Gonzalez will represent Best Actor for his role as Jean Valjean in Les Miserables. Both played these roles at their high school this year. Last year, Footlighters scholarship winner, Kyle Selig, also from Huntington Beach High School Academy of Performing Arts, participated in the Jimmy Awards and won Best Performance by an Actor from among 44 students from across the nation.
Musical Theatre West is one of 25 theatre companies in the country to send students to participate. “We are thrilled to send two very talented up-and-coming performers to the Jimmy Awards,” said Sari Rose Poll, MTW’s Education/Outreach coordinator. “We are so proud they will be representing Musical Theatre West.” Â
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