The Stephen Sondheim Student Performer of the Year 2014 Corrine Priest with judge Julia McKenzie
The Stephen Sondheim Society Student Performer of the Year/Stiles & Drewe Best New Song competitions took place at the Garrick Theatre, London.
Girl power took over from Twelve Angry Men at the Garrick Theatre for one glorious Sunday afternoon as Corrine Priest and Tamar Broadbent walked away with the glittering prizes.
Priest, a 21-year-old from Somerset who had just been the lead in the London School of Musical Theatre’s Spend Spend Spend at the Bridewell, captured the £1,000 first prize in the eighth Stephen Sondheim Society Student Performer of the Year, beating off her 11 fellow finalists with power-packed and brilliantly acted versions of Sondheim’s ‘Don’t Laugh’ (from Hot Spot) and the hilarious ‘Something For The Pain’, Eamonn O’Dwyer’s entry for the Stiles & Drewe New Song Prize.
And Broadbent, 24, an elfin singer-songwriter from Surrey who plays the comedy circuits, went one better than 12 months ago (when she got a special runner-up cheque for her number ‘17 Drafts’) by beating off more than 100 rivals for the coveted New Song award, which was also worth £1,000.
As she had provided two of the 12 final Stiles & Drewe choices in this category, an amazing achievement, the announcement that she was receiving it for the general excellence and left-field humour provided by both ‘The Procrastination Song’ and ‘Library Boy’, rather than awarding it for one song over the other, came as no surprise.
Tamar Broadbent’s two shortlisted compositions won the composer/performer the Stiles & Drewe Best New Song Prize
Multi-talented Broadbent, who plays her own songs on keyboard as well as writing and singing them, just had time to collect her prize before rushing off to the airport and a gig in Lithuania. She has been asked to perform her solo show as part of a festival there.
Priest became only the second female to be named as Stephen Sondheim Society Student Performer of the Year following Alex Young in 2010, and the latter, who recently played Brunhilde in the ill-fated I Can’t Sing!, was there to see the new winner receive her prize from legendary Sondheim performer Julia McKenzie (a patron of the Society and one of the team of judges under the chairmanship of music writer Edward Seckerson).
The runner-up was 23-year-old Callum McIntyre, who writes songs as well as sings them with acrobatic acting skills, and is on the verge of graduating from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.
Maybe McIntyre performed ‘Buddy’s Blues’ a little TOO energetically as he appeared to lose his mic which was seen trailing like a rat’s tail down his back as he moved around, although the quality of his performance was in no way affected.
Priest and McIntyre, who later gave ‘Scrapbook’ (by Rob Archibald and Verity Quade) a very moving interpretation in the New Song section, stood out as quite remarkable talents, but the classy Royal Academy of Music entry Stephanie Lysé, East 15 Acting School’s Luke Francis, Mountview Academy’s Sam O’Hanlon, Canadian-born Tyler Smith (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) and Royal Welsh College of Music’s Jay Worley must have pushed them close in what was an excellent competition.
American actor-singer David Bedella, who boasts a strong Sondheim connection as he took the lead in Road Show at the Menier Chocolate Factory and starred in the St James Theatre revival of Putting It Together, was the genial host and there were guest contributions from Caroline Sheen, also part of the Putting It Together team, and last year’s SSSSPOTY finalist Kari-Ami McCreanor.
New Song winner Broadbent had Francis and Worley to thank for outstanding treatments of her two winning songs, although it helps when you have such thrilling new material to perform, and I have written before in Musical Theatre Review: “If this young lady doesn’t make it to the very top, there’s something very wrong with the world.”
The event was produced by Neil Marcus, whose retirement from Mercury Musical Developments was announced from the Garrick stage, and Samuel Joseph, directed by Chris Hocking, with the music for all the finalists provided by the tireless Mark Etherington at the piano.
Yet playing the 24 finalist songs plus two for Bedella, and two more, Stiles & Drewe’s ‘Wait a Bit’ and Sondheim’s ‘There Won’t Be Trumpets’ for guest performers Sheen and McCreanor must have seemed a doddle for Etherington after his marathon stint playing for all 73 original SSSSPOTY entrants at the auditions held at the Royal Academy of Music in March.
Julia McKenzie and Seckerson apart, the other judges were Jonathan Butterell, Nigel Lilley and David Lan for SSSSPOTY and George Stiles and Anthony Drewe themselves for their New Song competition, helped by fellow composers Scott Alan and Andrew Lippa.
Whether it be the performing or the writing of songs, what this hugely well-supported and enthusiastically received afternoon conclusively proved was that the future of our musical theatre could not be in better hands.
Jeremy Chapman
Readers may also be interested in:
Spend Spend Spend – London School of Musical Theatre – Review
Tamar Broadbent returns to the Stiles & Drewe Best New Song Prize – Interview
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