Aurora sparkles at the Dazzle Awards

Since 2017, Aurora High School has attended the Dazzle Awards at Cleveland Playhouse, but what are the Dazzle Awards?

Starting in 2016, the Dazzle Awards were established by Pat and John Chaplin in order to award Northeastern Ohio high schools for their musical theater programs. Despite there being 30 participating schools, there are only 14 categories of awards to be won. Best actress and best actor winners will even go on to New York City and represent Ohio in the Jimmy Awards, the National High School Musical Theatre Awards.

This year Aurora High School was nominated for Best Technical Execution along with many individual nominations; Hannah Kulawiak for Best Actress, Johnny Kushan for Best Supporting Actor, Drew Albrecht for Best Supporting Actor, and Logan Jancsurak for Best Featured Performer. Gilda Chestney and Claire Schiopota also attended as representatives for Aurora.

Kulawiak, Kushan, Jancsurak, Chestney, and Schiopota went on to perform the opening and closing numbers of the Dazzle Award show. This included a full week of preparation; all rehearsals took place in downtown Cleveland. It started with Monday through Wednesday from 4pm to 9pm. Thursday was only 6pm to 9pm and Friday was even shorter with a practice from 6pm to 7:30pm. These students had to report back to Cleveland Saturday morning at 10 am for their show.

Saturday was jam packed with activities as students ran through the show, ate dinner, and walked down the red carpet. They even started their day by posing with the Burn Book from the Broadway musical, Mean Girls.

Rob Albrecht, Aurora High School’s musical director, says, “The best part of the show was seeing our student representatives and nominees perform for a packed house at the Palace Theater.”

Unfortunately, Aurora did not win any of the awards, but that didn’t keep the students from having a great night.

Senior Logan Jancsurak confirms, “I will miss my friends. This was my final performance of high school. Some of these people have been my friends since kindergarten. I hate to say it, but it may be my last time performing with them.”

“I think I’m gonna miss the camaraderie the most. The Dazzle Awards establish such a community with performers in the area. I always make new friends each year and I love getting to see the schools perform and shine,” Senior Gilda Chestney continues.

Even though Aurora may not have won an award, it was truly a great experience for all those involved. Hopefully next year Aurora can pull together a great show worth some great awards.