(MILLBURN, NJ) -- As one of the nation's leading theaters and recipient of the Regional Theatre Tony Award, Paper Mill Playhouse has a well-earned reputation for launching both performers and shows to Broadway. Since their inception in 1996, the Paper Mill Playhouse Rising Star Awards for Excellence in High School Musical Theater have ignited the careers of many notable performers, all of whom attended high school in New Jersey.  Among previous nominees and winners are Academy Award winner Anne Hathaway (Les Misérables), Tony Award winners Laura Benanti (Gypsy) and Nikki M. James (The Book of Mormon), Tony nominee Rob McClure (Mrs. Doubtfire, Chaplin), Jelani Remy (The Lion King, Ain’t Too Proud), Josh De La Cruz (Blues Clues & You!, Aladdin), Shanice Williams, (NBC’s The Wiz Live!) and Olivier Award nominee Jared Gertner (The Book of Mormon).

Click here for the list of 2024 participating NJ high schools.

The Paper Mill Playhouse Rising Star Awards Presented by Investors Foundation are modeled after the Tony Awards and serves the entire state of New Jersey. Paper Mill Playhouse conceived and created the awards in 1996 to give schools the opportunity to showcase their musical arts programs on a statewide level.  The 2024 Paper Mill Playhouse Rising Star Awards Production Round began January 18 and continues for 13 weeks through April 14.  During the Production Round musicals at 117 New Jersey high schools in 19 counties will be reviewed more than 70 Paper Mill Playhouse Rising Star Awards evaluators, with each school receiving three independent evaluations.

Nominations will be announced on April 29.  Schools nominated for Outstanding Overall Musical and all the Leading Performer nominees will perform at the 2024 Paper Mill Playhouse Rising Star Awards Ceremony, which will take place at the historic theater on Tuesday, June 11, 2024.  Recipients are presented with an engraved crystal award from Tiffany & Co.

Paper Mill Playhouse also awards $7,000 in scholarships at the Rising Star Awards Presented by Investors Foundation.  Seven cash scholarships are given to outstanding individual students who plan to continue studying theater performance or technical theater in college. Paper Mill Playhouse is pleased to award a prize of $500 to a school receiving the 2024 Educational Impact Award, which acknowledges a school that successfully connects the musical to the district's curriculum, using the production as a teaching tool for the greater student body and local community.  Through the Rising Star “Theater for Everyone” Inclusion and Access Award and a partnership with The Cultural Access Network of New Jersey, a project of the New Jersey Theatre Alliance and the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, Paper Mill Playhouse also will present a cash award of $1,000 to a school to recognize excellence in the promotion and practice of creative inclusion of students and adults with disabilities as performers, designers, musicians and production staff. This award seeks to recognize and reward a school that takes steps to ensure their performances are accessible to audiences with disabilities.  Student Achievement Awards are given to outstanding student production designers, creative directors and technical theater technicians.  The Outstanding Educator Award garners a $1,000 prize for the recipients’ school theater programs.

Lastly, students receiving final nominations in the lead and supporting performance categories receive a scholarship to attend Paper Mill Playhouse's competitive Summer Musical Theater Conservatory and New Voices Concert, a professional training program with advanced classes in singing, acting and dance.  New Voices offers the nominees an opportunity to perform on the main stage at Paper Mill Playhouse in the season finale concert celebrating the regional theater’s 85 seasons, "New Voices of 2024: Endless Ovations,” on July 26 & 27.  New Voices tickets will go on sale on March 1st at PaperMill.org, and at the box office 973-376-4343.  Students who are not eligible for a Rising Star Summer Conservatory scholarship may audition independently for a spot in the summer program and concert.  More information on summer auditions may be found at PaperMill.org.

The Rising Star Awards Presented by Investors Foundation are supported by The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation.

Rising Star scholarships are made possible by Ruth Bedford in memory of Jane Burgio, The Mosser Family in in memory of late father and husband James K. Mosser, Walt Santner in memory of Janet Sovey, and the Douglas Michael Krueger Scholarship Fund.  The Theater for Everyone Inclusion and Access Award is supported by the New Jersey Cultural Access Network.

The Hearst Foundations are Paper Mill’s Education & Outreach Partner.

The Rising Star Awards are made possible, in part, by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, A Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts.

Paper Mill Playhouse, recipient of the 2016 Regional Theatre Tony Award, is a nationally renowned not-for-profit theater under the direction of Mark S. Hoebee (Producing Artistic Director) and Michael Stotts (Executive Director). A beloved New Jersey arts institution since 1938, Paper Mill creates and produces groundbreaking new musicals and reimagined classics. Several productions have gone on to Broadway and launched national tours, including Disney’s Newsies, Les Misérables, Honeymoon in Vegas, A Bronx Tale, and Bandstand. The theater is also the home to an award-winning center for musical theater education and artist training, with outreach programs that impact thousands of students each year. As one of the nation’s premier musical theaters, Paper Mill fosters a creative environment to advance the art form, educate students, develop future theater lovers, nurture inclusion, and provide access for all. They acknowledge that their theater stands on the traditional land of the Lenni-Lenape, and we honor the Indigenous people who inhabited it for thousands of years before European settlers arrived.

Paper Mill Playhouse programs are made possible, in part, by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts. Paper Mill Playhouse is a member of the National Alliance for Musical Theatre, the Council of Stock Theatres, and the New Jersey Theatre Alliance.