The Scenic Route wins all major awards at Singarama
Singarama presented awards across multiple performances this week, with “The Scenic Route” earning recognition in every major category.
Thursday night featured student-voted awards. The Coba Craig Award for most Singarama spirit was presented to Annika Denney. The Willard Collins Award, which recognizes student leadership, was awarded to Ellie Moen and Reagan Sanders in a tie.
On Friday night, “The Scenic Route” earned awards for both Visual Effects and Choreography. The group continued into Saturday, winning Best Theme during the matinee performance.
Saturday evening concluded with the Sweepstakes Awards. Announced by Landon Parrish, “The Scenic Route” was awarded both Entertainment and Vocals. President McQueen then announced the group as the overall Sweepstakes winner.
For the directors, the recognition followed months of preparation and collaboration.
“It means everything,” director Reagan Sanders said. “We’ve worked so hard on this. It’s been a lot of hours and such an amazing experience, and it feels great for everything to pay off.”
The team began preparing in October, bringing together multiple groups across production.
“Just to see it come to fruition and see everyone’s talents, whether our music directors, leads, choreographers, writing team or set crew come together is really cool,” director RJ Trail said.
Despite their success, the directors said they did not expect to win all the categories and emphasized the other group’s competitiveness.
“I was not expecting all of the wins. The other shows had amazing talent, visuals and vocals, and I think we got lucky with our hard work paying off,” Sanders said.
They added that the outcome ultimately came down to the judges, who evaluate performances based on categories such as Vocals and Entertainment. Judges include members of the entertainment industry, faculty, alumni and past Singarama participants.
“Everyone brought energy and effort, and I’m thankful the judges liked our show, but I thought it was very competitive across the board,” he said.
Trail said the opportunity allowed him to step outside his major.
“I’m a business management major, so this is not my field at all, but it’s cool to get to do something out of the ordinary,” he said.
Both directors had prior experience with Singarama. Sanders participated last year in a supporting role, while Trail competed as a freshman before returning as a director in his senior year.
Featured image taken by Micah Barkley.
