Month: May 2017

Categories
News News Blog

City Continues Working to Repair Storm Damage

CREDIT: City of Memphis

City of Memphis

Public Works crew clearing tree in Frayser

After the third largest power outage in Shelby County history, with 188,000 homes without power at its peak, Memphis Light, Gas, and Water (MLGW) continues to work to restore power in the city.

Some 124,000 homes have regained power in the less than 72 hours since Saturday night’s storm and straight line winds came through town.

MLGW, along with an additional 70 outside crews from East Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and North Carolina, are working around the clock to restore power to some 60,000 homes that remain without electricity.

Because of the severity of the storm, the utility expects full restoration to take up to a week.

Their tweet below explains why repairs can be complex and may take longer in some instances.

City Continues Working to Repair Storm Damage

As for the debris left by the storm, about 90 trees have been cleared as of this morning, and 20 crews will be out today to tackle remaining trees.

Memphis mayor, Jim Strickland, says this morning he met with the City of Memphis’ Public Works leadership to discuss the next steps in clearing debris and right now the focus is on clearing streets of debris, as well as clearing garbage bins to avoid public health hazards due to rotting food.

Additionally, the city and county are working together to determine if the damages that the city sustained qualify for federal emergency assistance, in which under federal law, there must be $9.8 million worth of public damage.

If this federal assistance is received, the city will be reimbursed for about 80 percent of the restoration cost.

However, he explains that for individuals to receive assistance, at least 100 uninsured homes in the city must be “dramatically” damaged.

Mayor Strickland says because of this, the City needs the public’s help and advises anyone whose home has been severely damaged to let the city know.

In terms of long-term storm recovery, after all power is restored, health hazards have been removed, and streets have been cleared, the mayor says his team will have to figure out how to clean the city of remaining debris.

Mayor Strickland has plans to meet with the City Council budget committee today to determine how further restoration efforts will be funded.

Categories
From My Seat Sports

Frank Deford (1938-2017)

“I was more interested in writing long magazine feature pieces than I was in breaking hard news. Let radio and TV have the games. The culture of sport interested me more.” — Frank Deford

We lost a great one Sunday with the passing of Frank Deford. A kind, eloquent, honorable man with a sharp-as-a-scalpel wit, Deford just happened to make his living as a sports journalist. If you didn’t read his work in the pages of Sports Illustrated (to use a verb Deford would have rejected himself, he dominated the craft for much of the Sixties and Seventies, and well into the Eighties), you surely caught a few of Deford’s weekly commentaries on NPR’s Morning Edition. Whether his subject was international soccer (confounding), Bill Russell (greatest team-sport athlete of the 20th century), or Johnny Unitas (a personal hero from his youth in Baltimore), Deford made the games and performers we cheer somehow larger than scores, championships, or records broken. As treated by Frank Deford, sports helped expose humanity and reveal beauty, and under a spotlight not found in many other endeavors.

I reached out to Mr. Deford at two distinct stages of my life. Living in Boston as a college senior in 1991, I wrote him to ask about possibilities at The National. Deford was the founding editor of the daily sports newspaper destined to fold a few short months later. He wrote me back as though a 22-year-old college kid was a priority while he fought to keep a much larger ship afloat. His wisdom: Find a region you like and report there before considering the national stage. His was a kind way of telling me to walk before I run as a writer. I chose to report from and about Memphis, Tennessee.

Eleven years later, established as a (still-young) journalist in the Bluff City, I wrote Mr. Deford again, this time asking about my next career stage, if I needed to return to the northeast, to seek a larger market and/or a national byline. He put me in touch with an editor at a national magazine, and noted how he took a liking to a subject of mine — Stubby Clapp — during a visit to Salt Lake City when the Memphis Redbirds were in town. There was irony in that exchange: “Regional” journalism could stretch geographic boundaries. Good writing didn’t require a national readership. It required an individual’s care for the craft, and a certain delicate touch with one’s subject. Deford personified that touch for me, and I chose to remain in Memphis.

Deford and I happened to share a few coincidental commonalities. Neither of us played golf. (“The better question . . . is whether I have taken good enough advantage of the hours I have had in my life not playing golf.”) We both defined Boston sports fans well beyond Fenway Park. (“I laugh now, too, at all the Red Sox Nation crap, the myth that all New England has always worshipped the Sawx through thick and thin.”) And we both bristled at athletes or coaches who sold themselves above the team, or modern journalists who consider themselves above their subject matter. (“I was raised — infused — with a distaste for the smug and high-hat. Indeed, the worst label that a Baltimorean could give you was common.”)

Deford and I both married well, and we were both blessed with daughters. When his beloved Alex died at age 8 from cystic fibrosis, Deford turned to writing. Alex: The Life of a Child is one of 18 books Deford wrote, ten of them fiction. (I had hoped to send him a copy of my first novel, to be released in mid-June.) Perhaps the best coincidence of all, Mr. Deford and I are both Frank III.

Deford considered Jackie Robinson and Billie Jean King the most significant athletes of his lifetime, and this is perfectly Frank Deford. For Robinson and King changed the way we live, not just the sports they happened to play. And perhaps that’s the best way to remember this great American sportswriter, as a man who chronicled man’s continuing evolution, only through the lens of ball games, tennis matches, and prize fights. The final words of this column belong, as they should, to Frank Deford:

“Times change only because we who inhabit them do the changing first.”

Categories
Food & Wine Food & Drink

A taste of Colombia from El Sabor Latino and Arepas Deliciosas

I feel almost certain that when the folks at Memphis in May were deciding on which country to feature in 2017, someone had recently eaten at either El Sabor Latino or Arepas Deliciosas, two Colombian restaurants that opened in October 2015 along the Summer Avenue corridor.

When asked what distinguishes Colombian food from other South American or Central American cuisine, both owners replied with similar descriptions — fresh, homemade, and healthy.

Blanca Simpson, who owns Arepas Deliciosas, first replied “delicious.”

“Many people think that Colombian food is hot and greasy, but it’s more natural and homemade,” says the Pereira, Risaralda, native.

Esnet Acevedo, who owns El Sabor Latino with her son-in-law, Samir Restrepo, her daughter, Yuri Restrepo, and her husband, Carlos Ruiz, provided a similar description.

“It’s home-cooked with quality — fresh and healthy,” Acevedo says, with Samir translating.

El Sabor Latino, located just off Summer at 665 Avon, offers an extensive menu, including a daily plate plan. For $37.99, patrons can come in for five days and receive a different full Colombian meal each day.

Plates can come with steak, rice, fried plantains, arepas, a salad, and soup, or any sort of variety thereof. There are several dozen options to mix together.

Their biggest seller is the Bandeja Paisa, or “Typical Colombian Platter” ($14.25), with grilled steak, Colombian sausage, pork rinds, a fried egg, rice, arepa, sweet plantains, avocado, and red beans.

“We sell that every day,” Samir, who was born in Cali, Valle del Cauca, says.

Simpson first opened Arepas Deliciosas in Bartlett in October 2014 and a year later moved the restaurant to Summer. She uses the arepa as a base for most of her dishes, such as the Arepa Rellena con Aguacate y Guacamole (stuffed arepa with guacamole and avocado, $5.50), or the Arepa con Carne (arepa with shredded meat, $7.50).

Simpson and her staff make everything from scratch, including the pork sausage and the arepas.

“We buy whole white corn, cook it, then grind it, then we make the patties,” Simpson says.

Both restaurants offer hamburgers.

At Arepas Deliciosas, located at 3698 Summer, the hamburger comes on an, wait for it, arepa! and the customer can dress it with tomato, lettuce, avocado, what have you ($7.50).

At El Sabor Latino, they offer it on an American bun but topped with potato chips and pineapple, along with all the other typical fixings ($8.75).

They do the same thing with their hot dog, topped with potato chips and pineapple, as well as bacon, cheese, ketchup, and mayonnaise served on housemade bread ($7.99).

Samir and team — his daughter, Mayerlin Restrepo, waits tables — prepare specialty plates on the weekends, typical Colombian dishes that are a bit more complicated and more difficult to prepare on a daily basis.

Including tamales.

“Our tamales are big,” Samir says. “They come on a big plate. Different states make them in different ways. Ours is from Cali.”

They wrap it in a plantain leaf and stuff it with pork, potato, carrot, onion, tomatoes, and their own special seasoning.

Arepas Deliciosas serve up daily soup or salad specials, such as Cazuela de Frijol, Arroz, Tajada de Platano, or bean casserole with rice and a slice of plantain ($7.99).

Both restaurants serve breakfast.

No one can talk about Colombian cuisine without mentioning the juices. Both offer a long list of juices to choose from maracuyá (passionfruit), mango, guanabana (soursop), and many more.

“These are all my mother’s menu,” Simpson says. “This is what I ate growing up.”

“In Colombia, my mother-in-law cooked, and when she moved here, she worked in a restaurant,” Samir says.

“When we first moved to Memphis, when I would go to Florida or Georgia, I would go straight to a Colombian restaurant because there was nothing here. We took a chance opening a strictly Colombian restaurant. Nobody knew what it was.

“I think it’s good what the city is doing [with Memphis in May], so that we can know different cultures. Memphis is growing, and we have more cultures coming in. It can open people’s eyes.”

El Sabor Latino, 665 Avon, 207-1818. Open Mon.-Sat., 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., Sun. 8 a.m. to
7 p.m. Find them on social media.

Arepas Deliciosas, 3698 Summer, 409-3396. Open Mon. – Thurs., 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Fri.,
11 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Sat., 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Closed Sunday. Find them on Facebook.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Twenty Years On

Twenty years ago, Colombia was on the brink of collapse. The nation’s Nobel Laureate in Literature, Gabriel García Márquez, narrated the nation’s woes in News of a Kidnapping, which was released in English translation in 1997 and chronicled the 1990 kidnapping of nine journalists on orders of Pablo Escobar. “Nothing was simple in those days,” recounts the author, “least of all obtaining objective information … or teaching children the difference between good and evil.”

Fast forward to 2017. Although obtaining objective information remains as difficult as ever, Colombia is a new nation, compared to where it was in the 1990s. The number of kidnappings decreased to 205 in 2016, down from 3,570 in 2000. The economy has grown at an average rate of 4.1 percent over the past four years (2012-15) for which data is available and the homicide rate has fallen from a high of 86/100,000 people in 1991 to 24.4 last year.

During that same period, the Colombian government, under the leadership of President Juan Manuel Santos, negotiated a peace treaty with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC); the revolutionary group has turned over weapons and are beginning the process of reintegration into Colombian society.

None of this occurred by magic. Since the early 1990s, the Colombian people have been working in a determined fashion to retake their nation from the corrupt politicians, drug lords, rogue military agents/police, paramilitary fighters, and armed insurgents. They began by re-writing their constitution.

The new constitution of 1991 modernized the Colombian nation by broadening the definition of Colombian from the 1886 charter, which defined Colombia as a “Hispanic, Catholic” nation, essentially excluding all who identified otherwise. Everyone, after 1991, had a stake in Colombia, not just those who traced their origins back to Spain, and the recognition of new political parties, some with their origins in demobilized guerrilla movements, set a precedent for more inclusive politics.

Next, as part of the 1991 reform, the Colombians modified their judiciary, moving it from an inquisitorial to adversarial system. This has included modernizing of prosecutors’ offices, development of transitional justice and alternative sentencing, and a clear acknowledgment of the rights of the victims of the conflict via “Ley de Victimas” of June 2011.

The Colombians have professionalized their military thanks to a $1.3 billion U.S.-supplied funding package called Plan Colombia, which, since its inception in 2000, has grown to about $10 billion. The funding has forced a lethargic, barracks-based Colombian military to become more effective and engage enemy combatants, resulting in demonstrable victories for a military which had essentially settled for a stalemate with the expanding FARC insurgency. Plan Colombia supplied much needed training, technology, and most important, dozens of high-altitude Black Hawk helicopters.

Over the past two decades, Colombia has made significant investments in social and physical infrastructure that have moved the nation in a more prosperous, peaceful direction. In 2000, it inaugurated a complex urban transportation system in Bogotá called Transmilenio, and the international airport at Bogotá has been completely redesigned and rebuilt. In Medellín, creative investment in parks and libraries and urban transportation systems have tied the affluent sectors to the more economically challenged regions of the city; these, and other projects, have had transformative force for this once notorious “drug center” of the Americas.

Despite these remarkable achievements, there are many who would prefer to dwell on the dark days of the past; they have led a carefully orchestrated campaign against the peace process and have sought powerful allies to help return Colombia to the past. Florida Senator Marco Rubio has been courted by former Colombian presidents Pastrana (1998-2002) and Uribe (2002-2010) in their awkward attempts to stall the peace process. They hope Rubio can convince President Trump to retract $430 million promised to Colombia by former President Obama for a program called Paz Colombia.

The war with the FARC is over. It left a quarter million dead; millions more were (and are) displaced, and it is estimated the war cost 2 to 3 percent of Colombia’s GDP per year. Profit, greed, power, envy explain why some powerful sectors of Colombian society and their U.S. allies hope and strategize for the never-ending war for Colombia. But Paz Colombia is the better way forward.

Paul J. Angelo is a Ph.D. candidate at University College, London. Michael J. LaRosa teaches history at Rhodes College.

Categories
Film Features Film/TV

Alien: Covenant

Dear Sir/Madam/Sexless Artificial Intelligence,

I am writing today to bring your attention to matters of deep concern. Having reviewed records concerning the loss of the spacecraft Nostromo, along with her crew and cargo (Alien, 1979); the warship Sulacco and her contingent of space marines, along with the terraforming colony on planet LV-426 (Aliens, 1986); the population of the penal colony on Fiorina 161 (Alien 3, 1992); the military research spacecraft Auriga (Alien: Resurrection, 1997); the exploration vessel Prometheus (2012); and now the colony ship Covenant, I believe I have identified major problems with your astronaut training program.

I don’t have to tell you that these men and women risk life and limb every time they set foot in a Weyland-Yutani space ship to venture far beyond communication with Earth. More importantly, they are entrusted with corporate equipment and assets worth billions of space dollars. In the case of the synthetic androids known as David (Michael Fassbender) and Walter (also Michael Fassbender), they literally are assets and equipment worth billions of space dollars. And yet, your astronauts continually act in the least professional and, dare I say, stupid manner possible.

Consider the case of Christopher Oram (Billy Crudup), first mate of the Covenant. By all indications, he is — was — completely unprepared to assume command of a colony ship bearing 2,000 passengers in suspended animation and tens of thousands embryos intended to build a thriving human population on the faraway planet of Origae-6. Granted, it’s entirely possible that the Covenant‘s original captain, Jake Branson (James Franco), was a competent leader, but since he was consumed by fire while still in his hypersleep pod, we’ll never know for sure.

Acting Captain Oram’s first act is to deny the crew permission to hold a funeral for their incinerated former leader, which is a major blow to morale. Then, with breathtaking recklessness, he insists on diverting the ship full of sleeping innocents to investigate the source of a mysterious broadcast that may or may not be a John Denver song.

Once at the new planet, the acting captain and his away team completely disregard all reasonable precautions against contamination by possibly harmful biological agents. These astronauts are equipped with spacesuits — why not use them? Two members of the security team (Nathanial Dean and Demián Bichir) stop to smell the spores and are promptly infected by alien organisms. After blatantly violating quarantine procedures and allowing an unknown but clearly hungry alien life form on board the landing ship, pilot Maggie Faris (Amy Seimetz) destroys the vehicle with the negligent discharge of a weapon next to the ship’s fuel tanks.

Trapped on the planet with an unknown number of extremely hostile alien life forms, terraforming expert Daniels (Katherine Waterston) is forced to enlist the help of the android David, who has been stranded on the planet for more than 10 years after escaping the destruction of the Prometheus in a stolen alien spacecraft. While Daniels does seem to be the most competent member of the crew, the fact that David lives in a deserted city surrounded by tens of thousands of unburied alien corpses should have set off alarm bells in her mind.

(Expect a separate letter on the shortcomings of your androids’ ethical programming and their alarming tendency toward megalomaniacal insanity at a later date.)

Without even touching on Covenant‘s chief pilot Tennessee (Danny McBride) and his repeated, senseless endangerment of 2,000 sleeping passengers, I think you can see a clear pattern of incompetence emerging here. Weyland-Yutani needs to start recruiting smarter astronauts. We all agree that alien xenomorphs look really cool, but given past experience, you should train your employees to stay as far away from them as possible.

Sincerely,

A Concerned Citizen

Categories
News News Blog

Hurricane 901

You may have noticed Memphis got whacked with straight-line winds Saturday night. If you didn’t notice it Saturday night, you certainly noticed it Sunday morning if you attempted to drive around the city, particularly the Midtown and Frayser areas. Herewith a few “morning after” storm pictures, courtesy various social media. At its peak, more than 188,000 MLGW customers were without power.

Categories
Music Music Blog

Listen Up: Nathan McHenry

CREDIT: Michael Donahue

Michael Donahue

Nathan McHenry plays Jerry Lee Lewis in ‘Million Dollar Quartet.’

The tips of the upper E, F and G keys on the piano in Playhouse on the Square’s production of “Million Dollar Quartet” are chipped.

“Those chips – that’s definitely because of my foot,” said Nathan McHenry.

McHenry, 24, plays Jerry Lee Lewis in the musical set in the mid 1950s at Sun Studios. He strikes the keyboard with his size eight and a half caramel-colored Stacy Adams wing tip during several songs.

He’s played the piano since he was five, but he used his right foot to hit the pedals, not the keys. “I don’t want to damage any of the pianos I’m playing.”

Performing in the show as Lewis was a different story; he had to use his foot a la the Killer. “You just kind of throw it up there and go for it. I use my feet on ‘Brown Eyed Handsome Man,’ ‘Whole Lotta Shakin’’ and during scenes when I want to annoy Carl (Perkins).”

He’s not trying to hit a specific note with his shoe, but to “hit the ballpark. The right area.”

McHenry, who will play Lewis through Sunday’s matinee/end of run, recently was named Playhouse on the Square’s music director.

A native of North Carolina, McHenry began singing in church. “First time I sang in church I was four. With my sister. Something about ‘the name of Jesus.’”

He also loved the sounds made by soul singers. He especially liked gospel singer Mahalia Jackson. “My mom remembers me in the bathtub trying to sing like a black woman in this high voice.”

Jerry Lee inklings emerged when McHenry was a child. “I always was someone with a loud mouth always making noise.”

And, to this day, he will “dance around and beat on things.”

McHenry got into theater after his mother gave him the choice of continuing with soccer or joining a theatrical group. “I would have picked anything over soccer.”

He fell in love with acting. He landed his first role in “Anne of Green Gables” when he was seven. “I played some little boy who was supposed to have a crush on Anne. And I didn’t know what a ‘crush’ was. But I still delivered the lines as they were written and got a big laugh every night.”

McHenry hasn’t stopped performing since. “Somewhere in the 70s and 80s is how many shows I’ve done.”

He began dancing in musicals in high school. “I never took a dance class until high school. But our choreographer helped me along. And in college I developed more of an affinity for dance and movement.”

McHenry studied classical and jazz piano, but he picked up the rockabilly style when he landed a role as a brooding filling station attendant with slicked back hair in “Pump Boys and Dinettes.”

He moved to Memphis in 2013 after auditioning in the Unified Theater Auditions. Playhouse on the Square director Jordan Nichols called him back to take on the “Memphis: The Musical” role of Huey Calhoun, a “fictional recreation” of legendary deejay Dewey Phillips.

He listened to clips of Phillips’s old “Red, Hot & Blue” radio shows on YouTube. “You just listen to him for a minute and you’re, ‘OK, man. That guy is just crazy.’”

McHenry apparently has an affinity for playing wild men. “I think there’s a part of me that’s a little psychotic, yeah. But, really, most people are often surprised. Especially after this show. People come up and meet me in the lobby and are surprised: ‘Oh, my. You’re a normal guy.’”

McHenry was given another internship so he could stay in Memphis and play Lewis in “Million Dollar Quartet.” “I look somewhat similar to Jerry Lee. But I think a lot of it is that kind of energy. Just that ‘there’s something not quite right up there.’”

He didn’t want to “over analyze” his role, but he watched a lot of Lewis’s videos as preparation for the part. “I was immediately impressed by how he – and no one else has done this – can play the piano almost like a guitar. He can make noises up higher on the keyboard that are not notes, but they fit. He can just sit there and bang it and he doesn’t care what he’s playing. And it works.”

McHenry is on stage just about every minute of the hour and a half-long show. “I leave for about 30 seconds after the first number and come back on and don’t leave again.”

He’s constantly moving, twisting, turning and fidgeting on stage. “The show is a big workout for me. I ran a little bit during the rehearsal process just trying to get my cardio up so I could get through stamina wise.”

McHenry leaps on top of the piano at one point in the show. “Jumping up there took a little practice. I try to just think about if I’m vaulting over something. So, I do jump up. I put a hand down on the top of it and throw my legs over. I jump and then sit on top.”

He looks cool and collected as he takes his stage bow in a glittery red jacket with flames and piano decals on the arms.

After the show? “It takes me at least five minutes to get my breath back. It’s hard to just get a regular cycle of breathing again.”

“Million Dollar Quartet” is at 8 p.m. Friday and at 2 and 8 pm. Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sunday at Playhouse o

'Wild One' from Michael Donahue on Vimeo.

Listen Up: Nathan McHenry (2)

n the Square, 66 Cooper Street; (901) 726-4656

'Just a Little Talk With Jesus' from Michael Donahue on Vimeo.

Listen Up: Nathan McHenry

Categories
News News Blog

Rate Changes to Come for Metered Parking Downtown


Parking on the street Downtown is about to get a little bit pricier as parking meter rates, as well as the days and times of enforcement will change beginning June 1.


Currently, the city charges $1.25 per hour to park at a meter, and enforces this Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.


But now in an effort to better manage the demand for on street parking during busy hours, all meters’ rates will raise to $1.50 an hour and have longer hours of operation.


Parking meter enforcement in the Entertainment District and South Main area, which includes parking near the Fedex Forum, Orpheum, and Beale Street attractions, will see the most change, as hours of enforcement will be extended to Monday through Saturdays from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m.


In order to encourage higher turnover rates on spaces during high traffic hours, the maximum parking time in both the Entertainment and South Main District before 4:00 p.m. will be two hours during the week and four hours on Saturdays.


On all days of operation after 4:00 p.m. the time limit will raise to six hours in these areas.


In the Central Business District, Medical District, areas near the juvenile court and north of Poplar operation and enforcement of meters will also extend through Saturday, but meters will maintain the current hours of operation— 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.


During the week the time limit on these spaces will be two hours, while on Saturdays that time extends to four hours.


To save time, the city is also allowing patrons to pre-pay beginning at 6:00 in the morning for any metered spot and remaining time on printed receipts can be transferred to another metered spot.


Rate and time information posted on the parking kiosks will be changed next week.



Categories
News News Blog

State of Tennessee Enacts Outsourcing on State Properties

In a move that caught many by surprise, the state of Tennessee has declared its outsourcing contract with Jones Lang La Salle as effective today, Friday, May 26. If all major campuses opt into the contract, roughly 10,000 state worker jobs will be privatized to JLL, a global corporate real estate management company that contracts with properties and institutions all over the world.

Seventeen state representatives had requested individualized economic impact statements the contract would have on their districts. The Department of General Services released one response to all 17. The response was generic, with few specifics. Representative J.R. Clemmons called the lack of specifics “inexcusable.”

In all, there were 45 questions by representatives submitted to the state comptroller regarding the JLL contract. It is unknown at this point whether the comptroller has responded to any of those questions.

State Representative Bo Mitchell said that he has not received any additional information specific to his district and the potential impact of the outsourcing. “This is all about corporate greed,” he said. “We know that privatization doesn’t save the state money.”

More information to come on this story as we learn it.

Categories
Intermission Impossible Theater

The Winners for the 2017 High School Musical Theatre Awards

Another spectacular High School Musical Theatre Awards is in the books. And the winners were…

Outstanding Small Ensemble
Toffee’s Girlfriends, Zombie Prom, Bolton High School

Outstanding Large Ensemble
The Ancestors, The Addams Family, Jackson Christian School

Outstanding Chorus
42nd Street, Houston High School

Outstanding Student Orchestra
42nd Street, Houston High School

Outstanding Dance Execution
42nd Street, Houston High School

Outstanding Choreography
42nd Street, Houston High School

Outstanding Production Materials
Sister Act, St. Agnes Academy

Outstanding Front of House
The Little Mermaid, Corinth High School

Outstanding Artistic Element
The Airplane, The Drowsy Chaperone, Olive Branch High School

Outstanding Hair and Makeup
The Addams Family, Jackson Christian School

Outstanding Costumes
Into the Woods, Briarcrest Christian School

Outstanding Lighting
Zombie Prom, Bolton High School

Outstanding Set
Man of La Mancha, Memphis University School

Outstanding Technical Achievemen
Little Women, St. Mary’s Episcopal School

Student Creative Achievement Award
Grace Korsmo Arlington High School

Student Technical Achievement Award
Natalie Eslami Lausanne Collegiate School

Student Stage Management Award
Dustin Albarracin Corinth High School

The Bravo Award
Harriston Jones as Pugsley in The Addams Family, Jackson Christian School

People’s Choice Award
Shrek the Musical, Wynne High School

Outstanding Featured Dancer
Tim O’Toole as Andy, 42nd Street, Houston High School

Outstanding Featured Actress
Katy Cotten as The Witch, Big Fish, St. George’s Independent School

Outstanding Featured Actor
Kyle Bowers as Bazzard, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Germantown High School

Outstanding Supporting Actress
Sarah Cate Melton as Maggie Jones, 42nd Street, Houston High School

Outstanding Supporting Actor
Riley Young as Sonny/Piragua Guy, In the Heights, Hernando High School

Outstanding Music Direction
Tammy Holt, Into the Woods, Briarcrest Christian School

Outstanding Direction by a Teacher
Karen Dean, Zombie Prom, Bolton High School

Outstanding Lead Actress
Asia Smith as Ms. Strict, Zombie Prom, Bolton High School

Outstanding Lead Actor
Ethan Benson as Benny, In the Heights, Hernando High School

Outstanding Overall Production
42nd Street