Arts & Entertainment Editor
The
Apex Peak Players production of Les Miserables took home the trophy for 2015
Best Musical at the fifth annual Triangle Rising Star Live Showcase and Award
show at the DPAC on Tuesday night. Seniors, Will Stapleton who played Jean
Valjean, Joshua Menzies who played Javert, and David Flowers who played Marius,
were all finalists in the Best Actor category.
To
be nominated, musicals in the Triangle area must fill out an application.
Judges from DPAC, Theatre in the Park, Raleigh Little Theatre, PlayMakers
Repertory Theater, Durham Arts Council and WTVD ABC 11 attend the performances
of each show in order to select their regional finalist.
The
success of the performance did not come easy for the Peak Players. “We went
through a lot with the show because it was such a big cast and we did have the
whole snow situation,” said senior and ensemble member, Brad Gooch. “I remember
coming back from break, sitting down with the whole cast, and being like, ‘do
we want to push back the date or not?’ We decided not to.”
“This
is really important to us because it's Ms. [Gina] Winter’s last year, her last spring
musical, her last big one that she wanted to do,” expressed Gooch. “She likes
to say she took a risk doing Les Mis because it is so big and we all love it so
much. She was like, ‘we’re gonna go for it’ so we did it and it was successful.
[Winning] made us feel really good after all the work we put into it.”
