Tickets on sale now; Nancy Crouse to receive Lifetime Achievement Award too, and Ryan Cooper returns as host

To celebrate 25 years of shining stars, Arts For Life will honor regional community musical theater at its annual Best Performance Awards June 29. The organization will also honor two legendary women with Lifetime Achievement Awards – renowned singer and actress Karen Mason and accomplished theater veteran Nancy Crouse.

Karen Mason, who will perform, learned how to dream big while growing up in St. Louis and Chicago. First hired as a singing hostess at the restaurant Lawrence of Oregano in 1976, she went on to a career of great acclaim as a cabaret singer and musical theater performer.

Her Broadway debut was in “Play Me a Country Song” in 1982, and she was in “Jerome Robbins’ Broadway” in 1989. Mason originated the role of Tanya in “Mamma Mia!” in 2001, earning a Drama Desk Award nomination.

She took over the role of Velma Von Tussle in “Hairspray” in 2008 and played the Queen of Hearts in “Wonderland” in 2011. She was standby to Glenn Close in the 1993 LA production of “Sunset Boulevard,” then went on to play Norma Desmond in almost 300 performances in L.A. and on Broadway.

In national tours, she was in “A Christmas Story: The Musical” in 2011 and played Madame Giry in “Love Never Dies,” Andrew Lloyd Webber’s follow-up to “The Phantom of the Opera,” which ran at the Fox Theatre in St. Louis in October 2018.

Locally, she performed in “White Christmas” at the Muny and sang with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and at the Sheldon Concert Hall. She has performed across the country and recorded six solo albums.

She has received 13 MAC Awards – the most ever — from the Manhattan Association of Cabarets & Clubs (MAC), which honors achievements in cabaret, comedy and jazz through membership-voted awards.

Mason won an Outer Critics Circle Award for her performance in the off-Broadway Kander and Ebb revue “And the World Goes Round.”

Nancy Crouse moved to St. Louis in 1999 after an impressive career in both theater education and theater administration. She grew up in Indiana and earned a master’s degree in theatre from Ball State University.

She taught English and theatre for 33 years, retiring in 1996, and spent many years as the managing artistic director for Muncie Civic Theatre.

She and her husband Ron came to St. Louis to live closer to their two daughters Kim and Kara, both teachers. Since then, Nancy has kept being busier than ever working for several theater companies as a performer, director, set designer and costume designer, including Clayton Community Theatre, Act Two, and Theatre Guild of Webster Groves.

Hawthorne Players is her home base, and she won Best Director for her “The Color Purple” production last year, which also won best large ensemble musical. She has received multiple BPAs and Theatre Mask Awards (drama and comedy) over the years.

Crouse said theater has taught her to “dream without limits, imagine possibilities, choose like-minded collaborators, invite and listen to their viewpoints, plan meticulously, flex as necessary, improvise with what you have, work hard to achieve, push barriers that need broken, but most of all to live in the moment and have fun sharing your dreams collectively with an audience.”

Best Performance Awards Ceremony

Tickets are now on sale for the awards ceremony, which will take place on Sunday, June 29, at 2 p.m. at the Keating Theater at Kirkwood High School. Formal attire is requested, and seating is reserved. Doors open at 1:30 p.m. and soft drinks and snacks will be available in the lobby.

Local performer and event producer Ryan Cooper returns as the host for a record sixth time. He is a two-time BPA recipient and is currently the signature event producer for the Main Street Historic District in St. Charles, Mo.

“I’m a big Arts for Life fan. As a lifelong St. Louisan, I grew up working with many of the wonderful companies that make up the vibrant St. Louis community theatre scene,” he said.

Performances will be presented from the nominated musicals for large ensemble, small ensemble and youth productions.

Large ensemble nominees are “Anything Goes,” Kirkwood Theatre Guild; “Bright Star,” Hawthorne Players in Florissant; “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” Goshen Theatre Project in Collinsville, Ill.; “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” Curtain’s Up Theater Company in Edwardsville, Ill.; and “She Loves Me,” Monroe Actors’ Stage Company in Waterloo, Ill.

Merrily We Roll Along,” Take Two Productions in St. Louis, and “Once Upon a Mattress,” Act Two Theatre in St. Peters, Mo., and are nominated for small ensemble musical.

In the youth category, Gateway Center for the Performing Arts’s “Ragtime” and “Alice by Heart,” Young People’s Theatre’s “Seussical” and Stages Performing Arts Academy’s “Anastasia: The Musical” are nominated for best youth musicals.

Tickets to the show are $30.00 + a $2.00 service fee per ticket. They can be purchased at www.artsforlife.org. Nominations are also listed on the website.