The Bobby G Awards celebrate outstanding achievement in Colorado high-school musical theatre. The seventh annual awards take place at 7 p.m. Thursday, May 23, at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House. (Reserve your seat here.) Today we continue our rollout of the five finalists for Outstanding Lead Actor. The winner will advance to represent Colorado at The Jimmy® Awards/The National High School Musical Theatre Awards™ (NHSMTA).

Four years ago, Edwin Harris was performing in the Denver Center’s ‘A Christmas Carol.’ Now he’s nominated as Outstanding Actor by the Bobby G Awards. Photo by John Moore.

Edwin Harris

Seaweed J. Stubbs in Hairspray
Grandview High School
Class of 2020
Director: Brianna Lindahl

• What’s your handle? @edwinharrismusic on Instagram.
• College plans: I plan to go to Berklee College of Music to major in music production and minor in jazz studies.
• First role: I performed in three seasonal stagings of the DCPA Theatre Company’s A Christmas Carol from 2013-15.
• Why do you perform? It’s the best way for me to express myself and my emotions.
• One time you saw greatness play out in front of you: When I saw Dear Evan Hansen on Broadway, I was amazed and captured by Ben Levi Ross’s version of Evan Hansen. His voice was so powerful and his character choices felt so relatable. I felt so closely related to the character, and I was very emotional.
• Ideal scene partner: Leslie Odom Jr., because he is my favorite actor, and we have similar musical sound.
• What’s playing on your Spotify right now? “San Juan Street” by Deodato from his album “Love Island.”
• Favorite moment from your show: During our first runthrough of the song “Run and Tell That,” my voice cracked so loud and everyone was laughing. We had to stop for like four minutes.
• How does it feel to be nominated? Incredible. I put a lot of hard work into my character and the story, and it feels wonderful to be recognized for that.

Reserve your seat for the May 23 Bobby G Awards

• What does it mean to you that the Bobby G Awards exist? That we students get to receive recognition for all of the hard work we do. Being able to do what you love and be appreciated for it is an added bonus to the satisfaction of putting on fantastic shows.
• What has this experience taught you about the value of arts education and extracurricular activities at your school? That it is incredibly important to have theatre, music, band and all performing arts throughout every school. It let students express themselves through art and it’s very important to have a sanctuary and space in school to be able to do that.

More Colorado theatre coverage on the DCPA NewsCenter