Students representing Backstage Theater, Center Stage Youth Theatre, the Florida Academy of Performing Arts (FAOPA) and the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Academy received awards and recognition at the 2025 Junior Theater Festival Atlanta (JTF Atlanta). The monumental weekend dedicated to rewarding and celebrating excellent student-driven musical theater programs happened from January 17-19 at the Cobb Convention Centre in Atlanta, Georgia.
At the festival, each group performed 15 minutes of a Broadway Junior musical for adjudicators.
The Florida Academy of Performing Arts received the Excellence in Acting Award.
FAOPA’s Anna Beth James and Kat Baudoin were named Junior Theater Festival All-Stars, a select group of outstanding performers.
FAOPA presented Disney’s Aladdin JR. to Kelby McIntyre-Martinez, associate dean for arts education and community engagement of the University of Utah; and Bob Lenzi, Broadway actor (Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, Tuck Everlasting).
McIntyre-Martinez said, “Wonderful ensemble work, great storytelling!”
Lenzi added, “Excellent ensemble work in creating imaginative pictures. Great energy throughout the performance! This program finds a way to feature many of its talented individuals, while also being able to step back into an ensemble and work together.”
The Florida Academy of Performing Arts is a nonprofit organization established in 2010 with the goal of supporting and developing performing arts throughout the community. It provides extraordinary theater experiences that educate and challenge along with inspiring students. It is also heavily involved in the community and continues to build programs and support the arts. FAOPA fosters self-discovery, creativity, confidence, group responsibility and pride in accomplishment. FAOPA strives to be a model of excellence in theater for all our audiences.
FAOPA offers numerous programs at different levels in order to encourage personal growth and to work collectively to produce productions that allow its students the opportunity to reach a new level of competence, self-esteem and confidence. One of the groups operating at FAOPA is the competition team. The competition team was established in fall 2021, and its past pieces were from Junie B. Jones Jr., Children of Eden Jr. and Once on This Island Jr.
FAOPA has embarked on the journey of a second competition team, who has the exciting opportunity to attend JTF this year. They will be presenting Seussical Jr. The growth in competition opportunities, participation and experience has exceeded its expectations. FAOPA’s students have competed in several competitions: Junior Theatre Festival, National Performing Arts Festival, Access Broadway and Musical Theatre Competitions of America. Its teams brought home awards such as Excellence in Music, Excellence in Ensemble, All-Star Performers and Tech Students, Outstanding Performance Individuals, Grand Champions, Sweepstakes, Platinum and High Gold, and they attended Special Theatre Projects in New York City. FAOPA was invited to participate in a NYC concert of Stephen Schwartz and John Caird’s Children of Eden at Lincoln Center last year and will be performing in their production of Anastasia this year.
2022 marked FAOPA’s first trip to the festival, and since then there has been great success.
Its group won a Freddie G Award for Excellent in Acting (2024 JTF Atlanta), Excellence in Ensemble (2023 JTF Atlanta) and a Freddie G Award for Excellence in Music (2022 JTF Atlanta).
Student Morgan Sheriff (2024 and 2022 JTF Atlanta) won a Sheridan Giles Technical Theater Award. Noah Ochalek and Morgan Sheriff (2023 JTF Atlanta) were added to the Technical Theatre All-Stars, a select group of students who worked side-by-side with individuals to help run events. Students have also win MVP awards and individual performer awards in the past.
Students Mary Pope and Nicole Drake (2024 JTF Atlanta) and Timothy Addie (2022 and 2023 JTF Atlanta) made it to the callback for special projects or future video shoots for ‘how-to’ choreography videos. He was ultimately cast and traveled to New York City to film the videos (2022).
