NWTL Annual Awards Ceremony

For the second year in a row, Northwest Theatre Lab hosted an annual awards ceremony.  Since their program has grown so much in the past year, they decided to rent the cafeteria at one of our local high schools instead of hosting it at their small theater.  Although it didn't feel as intimate as last year, the girls and I still had fun dressing up and spending the evening with our theater family.  Like last year, the directors handed out several awards for the entire casts of each play, in addition to individual awards for all of the plays and for their scholarships.  Both Lia and Ella received several all-cast awards for the five plays they participated in this year (Matilda, The Knight at Dawn, and Annie for Ella and Matilda and Mean Girls for Lia).  Lia also was a recipient of a $200 scholarship that she can use towards one of the musicals that she will participate in this coming school year.  We enjoyed eating a delicious potluck dinner and spending the evening visiting with many of theater friends.  It was a wonderful way to wrap up our second year at NWTL.

Ella won "Excellence in Voice" for The Knight at Dawn.  Here she is receiving this award with the rest of this cast.  She also won both an "Excellence in Voice" and "Excellence in Ensemble" for Annie.  Sadly, she did not win the "Outstanding Performance in a Leading Role" for her role of Annie in The Knight at Dawn as the directors decided to give this award to the boy who played her brother, Jack.  Both Ella and I felt really bad about this as all of her other friends who played the lead role in other plays this year won this award.  I still feel like she did a better job than her co-actor and should have won this award, but after a good heart-to-heart talk at bedtime tonight, we both felt better and have moved on.

Both Lia and Ella won the "Excellence in Acting" and "Outstanding Voice in a Musical" for Matilda.  Here is the Matilda cast receiving one of these two awards.

Lia also received an "Excellence in Acting" and the "Outstanding Overall Musical" for Mean Girls.  Here she is with her Mean Girls cast receiving one of these awards.

Lia posing with Blair and Jen after receiving her scholarship award.

A mommy-daughter photo.

Lia's closest theater friends, Abbie and Isabelle, were not able to attend the awards ceremony.  Luckily, Lia was able to spend the evening with her two favorite college friends, Braden and Alex, who both work and volunteer at the lab.  Braden insisted that they take a cheerleader picture together.

Ella posing with her two close friends, Neah and Evie (and Evie's little sister, Avalon) who she met during Matilda this past summer.  She has loved spending the year with these two girls and we are so sad to say goodbye to Neah as she moves to New York next week.