Saint Patrick High School is proud to announce that Geoffrey Arndt, Theatre Director, has won the prestigious Charles Nelson Reilly Prize in Directing in the theatre/music theater division for the school’s production of Dracula in October, 2013. Arndt was also nominated in this category for the 2016 summer musical, Into the Woods.
Please see below for the official Press Release from The American Prize.
GEOFFREY ARNDT wins The American Prize in Directing, 2019—The Charles Nelson Reilly Prize
GEOFFREY ARNDT, Director of Theatre at Saint Patrick High School, is the winner of The American Prize in Directing, 2019—The Charles Nelson Reilly Prize, in the theater/music theater division. GEOFFREY ARNDT was selected from applications reviewed recently from across the United States. The American Prize is the nation’s most comprehensive series of non-profit competitions in the performing arts, unique in scope and structure, designed to recognize and reward the best performing artists, ensembles and composers in the United States based on submitted recordings. The American Prize was founded in 2009 and is awarded annually in many areas of the performing arts.
Link to official announcement: http://theamericanprize.blogspot.com/2019/08/winners-stage-directorsthe-charles.html
The American Prize in Directing recognizes and rewards the best stage directors of theater, musical theater and opera in America, based on submitted recordings. There is no live competition. Beginning with the 2017-18 season, The American Prize in Directing was renamed in memory of Charles Nelson Reilly, honoring his unique career and in recognition of the eleventh anniversary of the artist’s death, on May 25, 2007.
Charles Nelson Reilly was a Tony Award-winning actor and Broadway stage director, and an acclaimed opera director and teacher. Far more than the zany television personality by which he was most often identified, Reilly nurtured the creation of a whole series of unique one-person stage plays. Most famously, he directed Julie Harris in her Tony Award-winning star turn in “The Belle of Amherst”, on the life and poetry of Emily Dickinson. Among Reilly’s many Broadway directing credits were Ira Levinʼs “Break a Leg”, Larry Shueʼs “The Nerd”, and the revival of “The Gin Game”, starring Julie Harris and Charles Durning, for which Mr. Reilly was the sole American director to be nominated for a Tony in 1997. Mr. Reillyʼs career as an opera director included productions for Chicago Opera Theater, Dallas Opera, San Diego Opera, Palm Beach Opera, Toledo Opera, Milwaukee Opera and Opera Pacific. Charles Nelson Reilly and The American Prize chief judge David Katz were friends for three decades, first meeting through their mutual Hartford voice teacher, Mrs. Friedrich Schorr. Mr. Reilly served as honorary chairperson of the Friedrich Schorr Memorial Performance Prize in Voice from the competition’s founding in 1990, until his death.
Geoffrey is a teacher, director, and interdisciplinary artist from Chicago. He has served for eleven years as the Director of Theatre at Saint Patrick High School and runs the Saint Patrick Summer Theatre Company that supports students, community members, and professional actors through workshops, intensives, classes, and a summer musical. He has directed over forty productions in community and educational settings. Some of his favorites include Man of La Mancha, Amadeus, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Pippin, Phantom of the Opera, Dracula, Macbeth, and Robin Hood. Geoffrey has also adapted and devised works for the stage as well as designed and fabricated puppets for production, as well. He is currently pursuing his Master of Fine Arts in Directing through the University of Idaho. www.geoffreyarndt.com
Additional information about the competitions on the website: www.theamericanprize.org
CONTACT: David Katz, chief judge of The American Prize
EMAIL: theamericanprize@gmail.com
TELEPHONE: 203 746-2694
WEBSITE: www.theamericanprize.org
BLOG: www.theamericanprize.blogspot.com
