In the Wings

Looks like we’re all set to webcast the Helen Hayes Youth Theatre’s Metropolitan Awards live from the Paramount Center for the Arts on Monday night.

Tune in to www.lohud.com at 7 p.m. for live backstage interviews and at 7:30 p.m., we’ll be webcasting the event that has been circled on high-school-theater-kid calendars for weeks: the 13th annual Metros — live!

There are some changes this year, according to producer Danielle Rudess:

• Instead of having celebrity presenters, they’ll have a host — Tom Deckman, a Broadway vet (“Spamalot”) — and a new way to announce the nominees that will solve the problem of having names drowned out by the cheering crowd. (It gets pretty loud.)


• Getting rid of the presenters gets rid of the introductions and the banter and puts the focus on performances. It also allows for another nominee in the outstanding-overall-production category. There are seven this year — Archbishop Stepinac’s “Beauty and the Beast”; Bergen County Academies’ “42nd Street”; Don Bosco Prep’s “Jekyll and Hyde”; Hastings’ “Oklahoma!”; Pleasantville’s “The Wizard of Oz”; Rockland Country Day’s “Guys & Dolls” and Northern Highlands’ “Seussical.”


• Christian Conway, a student from Clarkstown High School South, will serve as announcer.

There will be awards given in 27 categories at the ceremony, culminating in the overall-production winner, which should be announced by 10 p.m. (It is a school night, after all.)

Here are the nominees in the Production (Technical) Categories.

Here are the nominees in the Artistic (Performance) Categories.

Once again, I’ll be live-blogging the event from the back of the hall. If you’re lucky enough to have a ticket, stop by and say hi.

Word is that the 1,025-seat hall is completely sold out, with 200 folks on a waiting list. So if you get shut out, be sure to log on to www.lohud.com and you won’t miss a moment of the loudest proudest moment in Lower Hudson Valley high-school theater.