A Big Congratulations to Our Students!

The Woodland Opera House’s Rising Stars/JTF Troupe cast of Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical, JR. took home the coveted Outstanding Production Award this past weekend at the Junior Theatre Festival West held in downtown Sacramento. As an honor of winning this coveted award, our cast of 21 performers presented the song, “Quiet” to a cheering crowd of 2,000 at the UC Davis Health Pavilion. 

The WOH experienced a whirlwind of good luck during the festival, including earning actors Liza Ivanova and Matthew Vallero (pictured) callbacks to be in a choreography video for a brand new Broadway Junior title. If cast, either (or both!) would spend a week in New York City filming the work with iTheatrics to be sent out with licensing materials for the new title with Music Theatre International! 

Our festival All-Stars - an honor bestowed to two cast members that showed something that stood out to adjudicators - were Porter Seguin and Owen Danny Brian (pictured). They had the honor of performing a dance at the Freddie G Award Ceremony on Sunday at the festival. 

Earlier in the festival, Education Director, Andrea St. Clair, had the honor of being asked by iTheatrics to talk about her experiences at the iTheatrics Teaching Intensive last summer in New York City. This interview was held during the festival’s New Works Showcase where attendees got sneak peek previews at new Broadway Junior titles in development. The favorite of the evening was Beetlejuice, JR. 

In addition, our Tech Olympics Team (pictured L-R: Octavia Villalva, Lauren Battaglia, Gianna Santoni, Abby Wilmot) proudly represented the Woodland Opera

House. And both leaders of the cast, Education Director, Andrea St. Clair (Director/Choreographer), and Music Director, Lori Jarvey were ecstatic to see our students shine during competition.

The Junior Theatre Festival is an annual festival held in Atlanta, Sacramento, Australia, England, and New Zealand. It was created by Founder and CEO of iTheatrics, Timothy Allen McDonald, and sponsored by Music Theatre International, Playbill, Disney on Broadway, RPM, and more. This year’s JTF West featured 44 theatres and 2,000 attendees. Young performers are treated to adjudications, workshops, presentations, and concerts by industry professionals. Notable names included: Jeff Calhoun (Broadway Director/Choreographer of Disney’s Newsies, Bonnie and Clyde, Big River (Deaf West), and the 1994 Grease Revival), Andrew Barth Feldman (Dear Evan Hansen), Taylor Iman Jones (Six the Musical), Rob Rokicki (Composer, The Lightning Thief Musical), Zina Goldrich (composer Dear Edwina, Junie B Jones), Joe Serafini and Frankie Rodriguez from Disney’s High School Musical the Musical the Series on Disney+, and more! Awards are presented in the following categories: Excellence in Music, Acting, Dance, Ensemble, and the coveted Outstanding Production Award. 

We're so excited for our students. All the hours of hard work put into preparing for the festival sure paid off! Thank you to contributing photographers: Andrea St. Clair, Kelly Coleman, and Amanda Seguin for helping us to share and celebrate this incredible news.