The Moorestown Theater Company’s cast, staff and travel party for “Alice In Wonderland JR.” under the balloon arch at the iTheatrics Jr. Theater Festival in Atlanta last month.
The Moorestown Theater Company earned its first Freddie G Excellence in Dance award and 10th overall cast award at the 2025 Junior Theater Festival Atlanta (JTF Atlanta), the world’s largest children’s musical theater festival.
The weekend of rewards and celebrations of excellent student-driven musical theater programs took place at Atlanta’s Cobb Convention Center last month.
“Attending JTF is a life-changing experience for our students, whether we earn any awards or not,” said Mark Morgan, theater company co-founder and producing artistic director. “But to win an Excellence in Dance Award for the first time is amazing, and it shows the caliber of dancers that perform with us.”
Produced by New York City’s iTheatrics, the event is the world’s largest festival celebrating young people and the transformative power of musical theater. This year, it welcomed more than 6,800 students, teachers and family members from 30 states and Washington, D.C., as well as theater companies from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Poland and the United Kingdom.
The JTF was founded in 2003 by iTheatrics CEO Timothy Allen McDonald, became an annual event in 2010 and celebrates its 22nd festival this year.
“It’s just an amazing experience that we love bringing to as many kids as possible,” Morgan noted of the festival. “It was just a wonderful weekend, and it’s always great to receive a cast award.”
Mark Morgan, theater company co-founder and producing artistic director, was the 100th recipient of the festival’s Freddie G Fellow Award.
The township theater company has attended every JTF Atlanta since 2013, and its success includes the nonprofit receiving a Freddie G Excellence in Music Award for the festival in 2023 and 2024, and a Freddie G Excellence in Acting Award for the 2021 festival.
The company has brought 15 casts to the annual JTF and increased its total to 18 festival awards for their work, with a Freddie G. Excellence in Dance Award for its full cast of “Alice In Wonderland JR.” and the Freddie G. Fellowship Award for Morgan.
The fellowship is sponsored by Music Theatre International Chairman Freddie Gershon and his wife, Myrna. Recipients are awarded an all-expense-paid trip to New York City to work with industry professionals – including Team iTheatrics in a master class setting – and a Broadway show ticket. The hope is that teachers gain invaluable skills from practitioners at the top of their fields to take back to their communities.
“To win awards for the whole cast so frequently, rather than just individual awards, shows that the Moorestown Theater Company raises and improves the performance level of all of our cast members, not just an individual or two,” Morgan pointed out.
The Excellence in Dance Award came after seven Excellence in Acting awards and two Excellence in Music awards since 2013, among them for a 15-minute performance of Music Theatre International’s (MTI) production of “Alice In Wonderland JR.” by 32 performers. Jared Jefferson, the show choreographer, and dance captain Emma Crisci accepted the Excellence in Dance Award on the theater company’s behalf.
The following company staff and performers were also recognized for additional designations at the festival: Broadway Jr. All-Stars (two cast members selected by the JTF adjudicators), Moorestown resident Kaitlyn Mark and Mount Laurel resident Lily Sims; Broadway Jr. Technical All-Star (one cast member selected by the iTheatrics staff), Hainesport resident Lilly Shreeve; Tech Olympics Team (four cast members selected by the theater company staff), Moorestown residents Kaitlyn Mark and Tyler Mark, Lumberton resident Owen Paglione and Hainesport resident Lilly Shreeve; and social media ambassadors (two cast members selected by the theater company staff), Delran residents Reilly Czop and Clare McGovern.
The Moorestown Theater Company – co-founded by Morgan, Carol Ann Murray and Beverly Bennett – is a community theater nonprofit. For more information on the group, visit www.moorestowntheatercompany.org.
