SSSSPOTY winner Desmonda Cathabel (centre) with runner up Ella Shepherd (left) and third placed Jade Oswald. Picture: David Ovenden
Stephen Sondheim Society Student Performer of the Year 2022 at the Sondheim Theatre, London.
Back after a long, Covid-enforced break and showcasing an even greater array of dazzling international young talent than before, the 14th SSSSPOTY emphatically demonstrated that the future of musical theatre in the UK is in the best of hands.
The competition, which started out in 2007 with just ten entries – all of them, needless to say, made the final! – attracted a bumper 350 student entry this year and were sifted down by video for the first time to 12 with the final taking place at – where else? – but the wonderfully renovated Sondheim Theatre.
The one great sadness, of course, was that the genius without whom this competition would never have been invented was no longer with us, but a generous sample of what he created was brought vividly to life on this West End stage and will be loved, sung and cherished for ever more.
Although all the finalists are studying over here, it could easily have been a worldwide competition. The winner, Desmonda Cathabel, hails from Indonesia and is on a one-year Masters scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music, and many of the others in this flagship event of the Sondheim Society cover the globe.
Rithvik Andugula comes from India, Annabelle Aquino is from the Dominican Republic, Cassius Hackforth was born in Massachusetts, Tommy Bell and Callum Martin are Irish, one from the North, the other from the South – and two of the reserves started life in Hong Kong and Utah.
Past finalists like Cynthia Erivo and 2011 winner Taron Egerton have gone on to transatlantic fame and fortune, 2010 champion Alex Young has matured into one of Britain’s finest musical comedy actresses and 2015 star Erin Doherty was an acclaimed Princess Anne in TV blockbuster The Crown. And that’s just a few. So the importance to the careers of this year’s success stories is not to be underestimated.
Each finalist had to sing one Sondheim song and one chosen from the New UK Musicals list and like Edward Seckerson, chair of the distinguished judging panel, said, what a thrill it was “to have such conspicuous talent on display in this of all years. The final could have gone any which way and did…” while panellist Michael D. Xavier found it “so difficult picking a first, second and third – I wanted to give them ALL a prize!”
SSSSPOTY 2022 runner-up Ella Shepherd pictured with the donor of the £500 cheque, Jeremy Chapman. Picture: Ian Bowkett
It wasn’t difficult to see where Xavier was coming from because runner-up Ella Shepherd, from Kettering, studying at the Bird College Conservatoire in Kent, was dramatically powerful in her Sondheim choice ‘I Read’ from Passion and showed real comic acting chops with her New Musicals song ‘Press Hash To Re-Record’, for me the high spot of the evening. Her £500 second prize was thoroughly deserved.
Shepherd is one to watch as is third-placed Jade Oswald, a Royal Academy of Music (RAM) graduate like the winner, who extracted every sweet ounce of humour out of ‘On the Steps of the Palace’ (from Into The Woods) and all the pathos of ‘Coming to Terms’, about a woman in therapy who has lost her lover to cancer. She won £250.
Excellent in every way but it was the striking and poised Cathabel who got the nod with a beautifully pointed and skittish ‘The Miller’s Son’ (from A Little Night Music), diplomatically followed by ‘I’m Ready’ from The Snow Queen composed by her prolific RAM associate Eamonn O’Dwyer.
More experienced than her rivals, she had honed ‘The Miller’s Son’ to a fine art, singing it first during the Maria Friedman and Friends’ Sondheim tribute week at the Crazy Coqs and later in a six-week run at the Menier Chocolate Factory when the show was expanded to include Marvin Hamlisch and Michel Legrand and re-named Legacy.
Living in Jakarta where there is no musical theatre heritage, she is here to realise her dream, having won a scholarship for international students who want to do a one-year post-graduate course in the UK.
Her £1,000 first prize, plus the opportunity to headline her own cabaret show, will take her one more step towards stardom and we look forward to seeing her play Beth in Merrily We Roll Along in her July farewell to RAM. One thing’s for sure: she won’t go short of work.
Cathabel said: “As someone coming from a faraway country to pursue an impossible dream of musical theatre and having English as a second language, I used to be extremely doubtful that I had what it takes to do it. But being selected to this final, doing Sondheim’s work – which is famously hard to do – I am now more confident that I’m good enough to do what I love to do and be able to convey the stories that I want to convey through my performance.”
In any other year, Callum Martin, who has terrific stage presence and points his lines with great confidence, and Annabelle Aquino, who has an extremely pleasing voice, might easily have been among the prizes, while Caitlyn Allen’s powerful ‘Poppy Song’, a lovely piece by Webborn and Finn, was an excellent choice for her big vocals.
Marathon man Nigel Lilley accompanied all 12 performers as well as host Jenna Russell (‘Losing My Mind’ and ‘Broadway Baby’), Alex Young (hilarious with ‘Don’t Laugh’), Lucy Carter and 11-year-old Laurie Jones (‘No One Is Alone’), the National Youth Musical Theatre Ensemble (‘Sunday’) and the 15 finalists and reserves in the ‘Back in Business’ opener – and did so quite superbly.
The show was directed by Hannah Chissick and produced by Craig Glenday, Stephen Sondheim Society chair and Musical Theatre Review contributor.
Glenday commented: “What an absolute privilege it was for the Society to host these remarkable young performers at the Sondheim Theatre. Each of them took to the stage like seasoned pros, and they all rose to the occasion – you’d never know that they’d trained during a global pandemic! The standard in both the Sondheim numbers and the songs from New UK Musicals was exceptional, and having sat in the deliberation room with the judges, I can confirm that the debate was heated! The stronger the field, the more difficult it is to make a call, and almost every student was singled out for aspects of their performances. But it was Desmonda’s name that the judges kept returning to – a most deserving winner. With the young voices of NYMT also honouring Steve with their beautiful chorus of ‘Sunday’, what this evening proved was that the future of musical theatre is bright and in very safe hands.”
The judging panel of Daniel Evans, Theo Jamieson, Caroline Sheen, Liz Robertson and Michael D. Xavier (with non-voting chair Edward Seckerson) somehow managed to find a winner, understandably taking their time in doing so – just ask Jenna Russell who had to use up most of her Sondheim memories to fill in while they deliberated! – and Sondheim legend Julia McKenzie presented (some of) the prizes. Roll on the next one!
Jeremy Chapman
The 12 finalists were:
- Caitlyn Allen – Arts Educational Schools (ArtsEd)
- Rithvik Andugula – London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA)
- Annabelle Aquino – Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
- Tommy Bell – Bristol Old Vic Theatre School
- Joe Boyle – Mountview
- Desmonda Cathabel – Royal Academy of Music
- Ed Cooke – East 15 Acting School
- Cassius Hackforth – Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance
- Izzy Mackie – Royal Academy of Music
- Callum Martin – Bird College Conservatoire for Dance and Musical Theatre
- Jade Oswald – Royal Academy of Music
- Ella Shepherd – Bird College Conservatoire for Dance and Musical Theatre
The three reserves were:
- Mackenzie Larsen – London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA)
- Izi Maxwell – Mountview
- Tom Watson – Bird College Conservatoire for Dance and Musical Theatre
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