Michael T. Mondak speaks about the Mancini Awards

It has been nearly two weeks since this year's nominees for the 2024 Mancini Awards for excellence in high school musical theater in Beaver, Butler, Lawrence and Mercer Counties were released by the Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School in the Beaver County Times.  And once again, there are no nominees from Mercer County.

I'm sorry Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School, but I am not buying the fact that there continues to be constant snubbing of Mercer County schools among the nominees each and every single year.  Allow me to tell you the reasons why:

  • The Mancini Awards, named for Aliquippa native Henry Mancini, are meant to reward excellence in high school musical theater in Beaver, Butler, Lawrence and Mercer counties.
  • The constant snubbing of schools in Mercer County among the nominees year after year after year smacks of deceptive advertising practices by using the Beaver County Times to promote these awards (which not many people in Mercer County are able to have access to unless they follow it on Facebook), and could lead to the possibility of a class action lawsuit, Mercer County breaking away from consideration for the Mancini Awards and forming their own high school musical theater awards, the resignation of any members of the school board with ties to Mercer County, or any combination thereof.
What especially irks me this year is the fact that Lakeview High School's production of Footloose was snubbed for a Mancini Award nomination.  I want to know what the hell you were thinking when you did that, because their production of Footloose took me on a trip down memory lane back to 2004 when I performed in a production of Footloose at Robert Morris University.

Come 2025, there better be representation from Mercer County among the nominees for Mancini Awards, because if there continues to be a lack of representation from Mercer County, then I will suggest in a letter to the Sharon Herald that Mercer County break away from consideration for Mancini Awards and form their own high school musical theater awards.

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