Snellville Performing Arts Takes Awards at the Junior Theater Festival

By Tana Poncsak

Snellville Performing Arts was one of 125 groups that attended the worldwide iTheatrics International Junior Theater Festival in January. The group competed with a cut of their production of Once on this Island, Jr., and received the All-Festival Freddie G Inspiration Award. Stephanie Wallace McDonald, executive director of Snellville Performing Arts, was thrilled for her students who performed at the festival, as the award encompasses everything she hopes to show with the theatre they create.

“People watch theatre to be inspired and to be touched,” McDonald said, adding that out of 125 groups and over 6,500 people, she is proud that her twenty-three students were chosen for this award.

And that’s not the only award the group received. Its student choreography team for the show, led by seventeen-year-old Joy Woods, also received an award. McDonald was happy to see the students, who had worked so hard and created choreography that is “genuine and true to the story,” recognized.

And finally, McDonald herself received an invitation to the Freddie G Fellowship. This invitation goes to outstanding directors who create truly inspiring and exceptional work. Recommendations by a current student, an industry colleague, and a member of the community are all part of the application process, and out of 150 to 200 directors, McDonald was one of only three directors to receive an invitation this year.

“To hear Snellville called out, seeing the kids cheering, and to know that our kids are inspiring and creating phenomenal theatre is really heartwarming,” McDonald said.

Snellville Performing Arts, a nonprofit organization, has been a long time in the making and came from McDonald’s own passion to share her love of theatre with others. Now technically in its fifth year, it’s been a dream come true.

McDonald, who is also an art teacher at South Gwinnett High School, grew up in Snellville and played every sport imaginable, but she was passionate about theatre, taking part in Odyssey of the Mind and her school’s shows. She also recalled an influential theatre teacher in middle school. But it was when she was around eight or nine years old on a cruise ship with her family as she watched a rehearsal of a live stage

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