A panel of Broadway industry insiders were on hand to select winners at the Sound Bites 6.0 musical festival, held at the Merkin Hall at Kaufman Music Center April 2.
The big award of the evening went to Ethan Crystal and Garrett Poladian, who wrote and directed Gollum Owned a Tropical Smoothie. The duo won three awards in total: Best Musical, Best Lyrics & Best Direction.
For their performance in Bittersweet Lullaby, Jason Veasey and Michelle Dowdy won Best Actor and Actress, respectively. Will Lacker won Best Book and Direction for the production.
Behind the Bar won two awards, Audrey Martells & Etienne Stadwijk for Best Music and Nile Bullock & Kiara Carrion for Choreography. A special category voted on by the audience selected Bleeding Kansas as their favorite piece of the night.
Other pieces performed during the event were Ant and Grasshopper; Book Lovers; Eighth Grade President; Jack & Jill; Maya & Me; and The Only Thing That Matters.
The judging panel this year consisted of casting director Alison Franck, composer Barbara Anselmi, producer/choreographer/director James Darrah, Samuel French Director of Operations Casey McLain, Disney Theatrical Group Literary & Editorial Associate Julie Haverkate, City Theatre in Miami Artistic Director Margaret Ledford, and Feinstein's/54 Below Original Programming Producer Robert W. Schneider.
Sound Bites is an annual festival that selects ten ten-minute musicals to be performed. The aim of the festival is to give burgeoning musical theatre writers a chance to showcase their pieces in front of a live audience.
