The San Jose Stage Top Honor Awards Program has recognized Harker’s spring musical, “Pippin,” with nine nominations for excellence. Harker received the fourth most nominations out of the participating schools, including a coveted nomination for Best Show, one of only six shows thus honored. This latter nomination means that the cast of “Pippin” will perform at the Tony Award-like ceremony in June.

Harker’s nominations are: Leading Actor – John Ammatuna and Daniel Cho, both grade 12; Overall Production; Chorus; Director – Laura Lang-Ree; Musical Director – Catherine Snider; Choreography – Katie O’Bryon; Costume Design – Caela Fujii and Mallika Dhaliwal, grade 12; Lighting Design – Natti Pierce-Thomson.

Fifteen high schools participated in the program this year, being adjudicated anonymously by a group of theater professionals including performers, designers and educators. The judges filled out an extensive review form after seeing the productions, and the results were calculated and nominations were awarded in 17 performance and production categories.

The Stage has partnered with Broadway San Jose to send the winners in the Best Actor and Best Actress categories to the National Musical Theatre Awards (The Jimmy Awards) in New York City, where they will compete with other regional performers. The winners of The Jimmy Awards will be awarded scholarships to New York University’s Tisch School for the Arts upon acceptance to that program.

The 2011 Stage Top Honors Awards will be awarded on June 6 at the California Theater in San Jose at 7 p.m. For more information and tickets please go to http://www.thestage.org.