P.O. Box 691 Sebring Florida USA 33871 Tel: 863-382-2525
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P.O. Box 691 Sebring Florida USA 33871 Tel: 863-382-2525 |
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Audra McCollum - The Zenons Very First Winner of Best Actress in a Leading Role By: Roy Riedy |
Audra was a third grader when she started acting at Highlands Little Theatre in 1981, the theater's Eighth Season. She played Gretl, the youngest of the Von Trapp children in Frank Oberhausen's first presentation of Rogers and Hammerstein's The Sound of Music. Exactly two years later she appeared as part of the London crowd in Marian Dunham's Zenon winning production of Lionel Bart's musical adaptation of Oliver Twist, Oliver!; and the following February in Frank Oberhausen's original production of Irving Berlin's Annie Get Your Gun, where Audra appeared as Nellie, one of Annie Oakley younger siblings.
In the Twelfth Season (1985-1986), now a seventh grader, Audra played Little Orphan Annie in Frank Oberhausen's November, 1985, production of the Broadway musical Annie. The role catapulted the Middle School girl into Zenon fame when she was named Best Actress in a Leading Role at the First Annual Zenon Award Ceremony at the end of that watershed season.
Despite the pressures that beset a full time student Audra found time to work with several other shows. During that famous Twelfth Season she worked on set construction and as a waitress on the Gourmet Staff during Janelou Buck's June production of I Do, I Do; and Sue McCollum's Vanities in August.
During the Thirteenth Season she was associated with four other plays at the Lakeside Playhouse in the same capacity. Fittingly, Audra appeared on stage at the Second Annual Zenon Ceremony at the season's end to present the Best Actor Award for that season.
The Fourteenth Season's programs are the last to show Ms. McCollum's name when she worked as a waitress with Gourmet or as a House Manager. Her name did reappear in the Tenth Annual Zenon Ceremony Program when it was listed in that program's index of former Zenon winners, and quite properly her name came at the head of the list for the catalog of former Highlands Little Theatre leading ladies.
Since Audra was first seen as a member of the Trapp Family in 1981, she has been associated with thirteen plays at Highlands Little Theatre and two Zenon Ceremonies. She was the recipient of the first Best Actress in a Leading Role for her outstanding singing and acting in the role of Annie in the musical of the same name. She has returned to the Playhouse for two First Nighter Galas and been mentioned in seven HLT newsletters and twelve local news article for a total of thirty-seven citations. She has become a legend in her own time.
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