In celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Dazzle Awards presented by Pat and John Chapman and supported by PNC, we caught up with three of our Dazzle Awards alumni – Colin Trudell, Sophie Manoloff and Steven Huynh - who are making their Broadway debuts this season! Steven has taken to the stage as a member of the Maybe Happy Ending cast, Sophie is playing in the incredible orchestra in the revival of Gypsy and Colin will make his debut this spring as a member of Lincoln Center’s Floyd Collins cast.
PSQ: Can you share a bit about your experience in the Dazzle Awards program at Playhouse Square?
Colin: My Dazzle Awards experience is a bit unique in that I participated in both the performance and the production side of the program. My senior year of high school, 2016, I was a student at Rocky River High School and participated in the first Dazzle Awards. I was nominated in the Best Actor category and our school was nominated for a few other awards as well, including Best Musical. It was during the week of rehearsals that I met Steven Huynh, another Best Actor nominee. The following year I then came back to work at the awards. The best way I can sum up my Dazzle experience is this - before we started the week of rehearsals, I was set on my college major being Sports Broadcasting. By the end of the week, I decided I was going to be a musical theater major instead. The Dazzle Awards showed me that I could actually pursue theater as a career and gave me the confidence to make that step. Also, I made some incredible friends along the way.
Sophie: I was in the first ever Dazzle Awards in May of 2016. I was a junior at Rocky River High School, and we had just done Catch Me If You Can. I grew up loving the arts and seeing many of the shows that came through Playhouse Square, so the opportunity to perform onstage at the Connor Palace was unbelievable to me! (At the time, I never thought my career would allow me to do that all over the country). RRHS won best musical at the Dazzle Awards both that year and my senior year (for Legally Blonde, I played Vivienne). We all went to NYC to support Brandon Schumaker at the Jimmy Awards in 2017. It was an amazing experience.
Steven: I was a senior at Marion L. Steele High School when our theater company participated in Playhouse Square’s inaugural Dazzle Awards in 2016. The production was Little Shop of Horrors, and I played Seymour. We received nominations for Best Musical (Tier 2) and Best Actor (among others), which were incredibly special because nominees in these categories earned the opportunity to perform a musical number and as part of the best actor/actress medley, respectively. On May 21, 2016, I debuted on the Connor Palace stage by singing in the opening and closing numbers, showcasing “Skid Row” with my theater company, and performing in the best actor medley with my incredibly talented fellow nominees, but more importantly, I contributed to something much larger than myself—the culmination and celebration of the talent, the hard work, and the art produced by each and every school and young professional.
PSQ: Where has your career path led you since your time in the program?
Steven: After the Dazzle Awards, I graduated high school and took a gap year to train and perform locally at TrueNorth/French Creek Theatre and Beck Center for the Arts in preparation for college auditions, ultimately continuing my education at Baldwin Wallace University and earning my Bachelor of Music degree in Music Theatre in 2021—some notable productions include South Pacific (ensemble) in concert with the Cleveland Orchestra at Blossom Music Center, the first collegiate production of Kinky Boots (Harry, u.s Charlie), and a COVID-era virtual production of Spring Awakening (Moritz).
I’ve based myself out of New York City since, and throughout the last few years, I: made my Off-Broadway Debut in Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas (Wendell, u.s. Emmet) with my good friend and fellow 2016 Dazzle Award alum Colin Trudell; filmed my first two television co-starring roles in “The Good Fight” and “Blue Bloods”; performed regionally at Maltz Jupiter Theatre (Jupiter, FL), Idaho Shakespeare Festival (Boise, ID), Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival (Lake Tahoe, NV), and the Studebaker Theater (Chicago, IL); and participated in some high profile readings and workshops such as The Lost Boys and Crazy Rich Asians.
Currently, I am on Broadway and celebrating my BROADWAY DEBUT with the cast and company of Maybe Happy Ending at the Belasco Theatre!
Colin: As I mentioned, the Dazzle Awards led me to completely changing my college trajectory, in that I dropped out of my intended college program and set my sights on auditioning for college programs. This gave me a gap year that I wanted to fill with prepping myself for the auditions. I took voice, acting, and dance classes, worked a part-time job, and found myself back where it started - as an intern in the Community Engagement and Education Department of Playhouse Square. In a really full circle moment, my gap year ended with me working at the second annual Dazzle Awards and seeing other young actors right where I was a year prior. I gained so much appreciation for and knowledge of theater education that year and carry a lot of what I learned as an intern (including copying/printing skills) with me today. After lots of auditions, I found myself getting my BFA in musical theater at Texas State University. After graduating in 2021, I moved to New York City where I have been ever since. Since living in the city, I have worked in theatre regionally and Off Broadway, in TV, and this spring I’ll be making my Broadway debut in Floyd Collins at Lincoln Center.
Sophie: Being so involved in music/the arts in high school is the main reason why I ended up on this career path. I loved performing onstage and singing in choirs, but my true passion was playing my trumpet in jazz bands, marching bands, wind ensembles and orchestras.
I was actually planning to become a doctor, applying to colleges premed, until my high school band directors, Kirk Taylor & Ryan Hudec, and private lesson instructor Amanda Bekeny urged me to audition for a few colleges on my trumpet. I got into NYU with their Talent Scholarship, and after much deliberation, ultimately chose to move to NYC and pursue music instead of medicine at Cal Berkeley. I didn’t want to wonder “what if” if I never dove in with my trumpet, so I practiced hard, won first chair in the blind seating audition my freshman year, immediately started gigging in the city, and have never looked back.
Some standout gigs / super cool places my trumpet has taken me since: Harry Styles music video - ‘Music for a Sushi Restaurant’ - I’m Harry’s trumpet playing prawn; Carnegie Hall; Jazz at Lincoln Center; Preservation Hall, New Orleans; Hollywood Pantages, Los Angeles. Lead trumpet on the Broadway National tours of Fiddler on the Roof (’21-’23) 400 shows in 110 cities US & Canada; Peter Pan (’23-’24) 251 shows in 24 cities US & Mexico. Subbing on Broadway in The Music Man ’23 (with Hugh Jackman & Sutton Foster) Trumpet 3 and Chicago ’24, Trumpet 2. My own Broadway Chair for Ragtime ’23 (Reunion concert with original cast), Trumpet 2 GYPSY ’24-present (with Audra McDonald), Trumpet 3.
PSQ: Tell us about the moment that you found out that you would be on Broadway! What is your role in the production?
Sophie: I found out that I would have my own chair on Broadway in the revival of GYPSY with Audra McDonald on 7/10/24 - a day I’ll never forget. In the music world, we don’t explicitly audition for jobs - how you play at every gig and the impressions you make across the industry is your nonstop ‘audition’. I had made a good impression on a Zoom call master class four years ago with Andy Einhorn (Broadway music director and orchestrator), with a recording I made playing all three trumpet parts to the Gypsy Overture (the greatest overture of all time). He hired me for a few gigs after that, including the Peter Pan tour. What I didn’t know at the time was that how I played/performed in Peter Pan was my unofficial audition for Gypsy. Nine months later, Andy pulled me from the tour and offered me the full time Trumpet 3 chair in the 26-piece Gypsy orchestra he was music directing on Broadway. I had always dreamed of calling my parents and sisters with that news, but I thought it would take another 10-15 years. Getting a Broadway chair was my end goal of dream jobs, and I still cannot believe it’s happened to me at 25. (And with GYPSY, the absolute dream trumpet show, no less).
Steven: My agent called me on Wednesday, July 10, 2024 at 4:18 p.m. He knows I tend to take detailed notes about my self-tapes, auditions, and contracts, so he said “I want you to write down that on July 10 at 4:18 p.m., I am calling with an offer for you to make your Broadway debut with Maybe Happy Ending.” I immediately called my family and friends to share the news and celebrate the reward of my steadfast hard work and dedication, their unwavering support, faith, and belief in my success, and all the roads I took and people I traveled with on this journey. This has surpassed all of my dreams and expectations and still continues to find new ways to do so.
As an offstage standby for Maybe Happy Ending, I am the primary cover for Oliver (played by Darren Criss) and the secondary cover for James/Junseo (played by Marcus Choi). This means that in the event of illness/emergencies or a planned vacation/personal day, my job is to step into and perform one of the roles I understudy, so the show may continue as scheduled.
Colin: I found out that I was going to be on Broadway while babysitting. Babysitting has been my “survival job” in New York for around three years (one of the best survival jobs you can have in my opinion) and I think I was doing some coloring or a craft of sorts when my agent called me to tell me I got the job. I was stunned and speechless but then my attention was quickly grabbed by various craft needs and snack preparation. All day it was a cyclical pattern of me forgetting that phone call and then delightfully remembering and then forgetting again and then remembering again. It still hasn’t quite sunk in. I will be a swing in the production, covering multiple principal and ensemble tracks. Also - Floyd Collins is truly a dream show of mine. I first learned of it as a freshman in college, studying Adam Guettel’s music. The show was done Off-Broadway in the ‘90s, and I never thought that 30 years later I would be a part of the original Broadway production. It’s a complete dream.
PSQ: Why is a program like the Dazzle Awards so important for students?
Colin: I think that access to theater is something that the theater community as a whole is always trying to improve and grow, and the Dazzle Awards program is a champion of this. The amazing thing about the program is that it is more than just a one-night award show. It is being able to attend master classes at Playhouse Square and learn directly from industry professionals, it is making friends with kids from other schools who love theater just as much as you do, and it is getting to see so much more theater than maybe you’ve had the opportunity to. For me, theater went from being a hobby to being my career, and that would not have happened without this program, and I’m sure that I’m not the only one who has experienced this. It shows kids that a career in the arts is possible and that you’re good enough to go for it. I owe a ton to Playhouse Square for this. One of my favorite things about the Dazzle Awards, personally, is my connection to Steven. We were in the first year of the Dazzle Awards together, both went off to separate musical theater colleges, reconnected in New York by making our Off-Broadway debuts together (we had no idea until we were both emailed the cast list), worked another theater job together, and are now both making our Broadway debuts together in the same season. Without the Dazzle Awards I wouldn’t have friends like Steven, and I wouldn’t have the privilege of being a professional actor.
Sophie: The Dazzle Awards program really gives all Northeast Ohio high school students, from all ‘tiers’ of arts program funding, an opportunity to perform and compete at a high level, at such a significant stage/venue in Cleveland. Additionally, the opportunity to go to New York City and the Jimmy Awards is huge - that’s what kickstarts many young actors’ careers. And for me, now a Broadway pit orchestra musician, that experience was pivotal in shaping the course of my career.
I specifically remember that one weekend in high school changing my college application focus - I performed in the 2016 Dazzle Awards on a Saturday (singing and dancing onstage at the Connor Palace to a sold out audience + then winning best musical = unforgettable) and with the Cleveland Youth Wind Symphony on Sunday at Severance Hall (I played the Cancer Blows benefit concert with the late Ryan Anthony, a trumpet hero of mine). I remember writing about how meaningful that weekend was to me, getting to perform and make such beautiful music and art, in my Common application essay when I applied to schools. I think the Dazzle Awards really opened my eyes to the possibility of turning this passion of mine into a career if I really went for it… So I did… And the rest is history!
Steven: There’s no question about the importance of arts education—just analyze the peer-reviewed literature and studies of how it boosts cognitive function and motor skill development and improves academic engagement and performance—but what Playhouse Square has provided Northeast Ohio schools through the Dazzle Awards program is truly unparalleled. Playhouse Square affords high school students the opportunity to learn and develop high caliber performance skills and techniques from professional master classes featuring local and touring actors and designers. Combining that level of accessibility and exposure with the chance to find community with equally talented, committed, and like-minded peers throughout the surrounding Cleveland area creates an unforgettably life changing experience every student deserves to have.
For more information on the Dazzle Awards program, please visit playhousesquare.org/dazzleawards.