13th Annual Shuler Awards Celebrate Achievements Of Georgia High School Musical Theater Students
The 13th annual Shuler Awards will be virtual this year.
ArtsBridgeGA.org
Broadway star and celebrated actor Shuler Hensley was born in Atlanta and raised in Marietta. After graduating from the Westminster Schools, he attended the University of Georgia on a baseball scholarship. He left UGA after his sophomore year and decided to study voice at the Manhattan School of Music, where he majored in opera.
After getting his master’s degree at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, he began his stage career.
Hensley has starred in productions such as Broadway’s “Young Frankenstein,” where he played the Monster. He has played Kerchak in a Broadway production of “Tarzan,” and he won an Olivier Award for playing Jud in a London production of “Oklahoma.”
As a way to give back to his Georgia community, Hensley enthusiastically provided his name when ArtsBridge Foundation created the Georgia High School Musical Theatre Awards, officially named as the Shuler Hensley Awards in his honor. The year-round competition and awards ceremony is presented by the ArtsBridge Foundation with Hensley as its star host and program champion.
“City Lights” host Lois Reitzes was joined by Hensley and Angela Farr Schiller, director of arts education at the ArtsBridge Foundation, to talk about the 13th annual award ceremony.
“I would describe it as Georgia’s high school musical theater’s equivalent to the Tony Awards for the high school group,” said Hensley.
“I get so inspired by these kids to the point that it reinvigorates me as an artist every time I come here,” he said.
The virtual Shuler Awards can be streamed Thursday, May 20 at 8 p.m. on GPB. The full list of this year’s nominees can be found here.
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