You can watch the 2023 Metro Award nominations for high school musicals live. Here's how

Nominations for the 22nd Metro Awards, honoring high school musicals from the Lower Hudson Valley and Bergen County in New Jersey, will be livestreamed exclusively on lohud.com at 7:30 p.m., Monday, May 15, from the stage of Tarrytown Music Hall, the event's new venue.

It's been awhile. The Metros were last held in 2019. Then the pandemic brought a three-year hiatus.

But 2023 sees a new production team running things for Metros producer Danielle Rudess of Nyack's Helen Hayes Youth Theatre. Blake Spence and Jordan Singer will join me in announcing the nominees in 35 categories, everything from lobby display to outstanding overall production.

In keeping with tradition, the Metro Awards ceremony will be held Monday, June 12, the night after Broadway bestows its Tony Awards.

Only schools that enter the competition are eligible to participate. This year, 56 schools are taking part: 25 from Westchester, 23 from Bergen, 5 from Rockland and 3 from Putnam.

What's new this year?

This year's home for the Metros is the 843-seat Tarrytown Music Hall. With 529 fewer seats than the 2019 home at Purchase College's PAC Concert Hall, it'll make for a tougher ticket, something Spence said he is stressing to schools that are about to find themselves nominated.

(For the ticketless, lohud.com — the Metros exclusive media partner — plans to livestream the June 12 awards ceremony as well, with a pre-show blue-carpet interview show.)

There's a new hair and makeup design category.

Other categories have been renamed "in keeping with the times," Spence said. For example: "outstanding performance by a performer in a leading female-identified role" and "outstanding performance by a performer in a supporting male-identified role."

What's the same?

Metros night will still be a raucous night of showtunes, of kids hearing their names announced and then running down from the balcony, arriving breathless at the podium to thank their directors, their parents, their casts and crews. There might be promposals.

There will also be musical performances by nominated performers in leading roles and by those schools nominated for outstanding overall production, the night's big prize.

Traditions: Pizza, paninis and #lohudmetros

Since it's been awhile, there are nominations livestream traditions to be observed.

Viewing parties: The livestream on lohud.com has inspired viewing parties, with theater kids huddling to watch on the big screen. But everyone at the party also uses their own devices to watch along, to register their support.

The menu: Tradition holds that casts and crew gather around pizza, wings and paninis to find out who'll be nominated. Extra points (and possible livestream shoutouts) are given to those whose feasts are show-specific.

Insta hashtag: To be part of the social media story on nominations night, use #lohudmetros on Instagram. Follow me (@pkramer1) and lohud (@lohud).

Who's in the running for 2023 Metro Awards?

Here's a look, by county, at who'll be up for Metros this year.

Westchester: Archbishop Stepinac, “Jersey Boys”; Blind Brook, “Something Rotten!”; Briarcliff, “The Lightning Thief”; Dobbs Ferry, “Chicago: Teen Edition”; Eastchester, “Spamalot”; Edgemont, “Mean Girls: High School Edition”; Harrison, “Into the Woods”; Hastings, “Something Rotten!”; Kennedy Catholic, "SpongeBob SquarePants: The Musical"; Lakeland High School, “Into the Woods”; Mamaroneck, “Footloose”; New Rochelle, “Love’s Labour’s Lost”; North Salem MS/HS, “Chicago: Teen Edition”; Ossining, “How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying”; Pleasantville, “Bye Bye Birdie”; Port Chester, “High School Musical”; Rye, “Footloose”; Rye Neck, “Anastasia”; Rye Country Day, “The Addams Family”; Sleepy Hollow, “Bye Bye Birdie”; The Leffell School, “Legally Blonde”; Tuckahoe, “Beauty and the Beast”; Valhalla, “Matilda”; Westlake, “The Addams Family”; and White Plains, “Mamma Mia!”

Bergen: Academy of the Holy Angels, “Twelfth Night, the Musical”; Bergen County Academies, “Fiddler on the Roof”; Don Bosco Prep, “Shrek”; Fair Lawn High School, “Little Shop of Horrors”; Glen Rock, “Little Shop of Horrors”; Hackensack High School, “Chicago: Teen Edition”; Immaculate Heart Academy, “Xanadu”; Lodi, “Shrek”; Lyndhurst, “The Little Mermaid”; Mahwah, “Shrek”; Midland Park, “Anastasia”; New Milford, “The Addams Family”; Northern Highlands, “Bright Star”; Northern Valley/Old Tappan, “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels”; Pascack Hills, “Mamma Mia!”; Pascack Valley, “Chicago: Teen Edition”; Ramapo (NJ), “Urinetown”; Ramsey, “Crazy for You”; Rutherford High School, “Mean Girls”; Saddle Brook MS/HS, “Oliver!”; Saddle River Day, “The Addams Family”; St. Joseph Regional, Montvale, “Into the Woods”; and Westwood, “Into the Woods”

Rockland: Clarkstown South, “Grease”; North Rockland, “In the Heights”; Nyack, “Little Shop of Horrors”; Ramapo (NY), “Footloose”; and Tappan Zee, “Spamalot: School Edition”

Putnam: Brewster, “James and the Giant Peach”; Carmel, “High School Musical”; and Putnam Valley, “Something Rotten!”

When were the last Metro Awards?

The Metros were last held in 2019 at the expansive Concert Hall at Purchase College's Performing Arts Center, with Sleepy Hollow High School's production of "Hello, Dolly!" taking top honors. When the global pandemic struck in March 2020, it caught some schools hours before opening curtains, and the rest of the season was canceled.

In 2021, some schools pivoted to Zoom musicals, or ambitious green-screen productions. In 2022, some schools were back on stage, with actors wearing face shields. But Metros producer Rudess kept the awards show dark.

It was at the urging of Spence and Singer, Rudess said, that she decided to pass the baton to a new generation, after 21 years of helming the awards as head of the Nyack-based Helen Hayes Youth Theatre.

Singer, who coordinates after-school theater programs across Westchester for KJK Productions, has been a Metros judge for years, and coordinated the judges this year. Spence teaches at Lyndhurst High School in Lyndhurst, New Jersey, and is the artistic director of theater at Madison High School in Morris County.

Who has hosted the Metros?

The 2023 Metros hosts have yet to be named, but past hosts have included Ethan Slater and Danny Skinner, from "SpongeBob SquarePants: The Musical," Ashley Park ("Mean Girls" and "Emily in Paris"), Adam Chanler-Berat ("Next to Normal," "Amelie"), Kyle Beltran ("In the Heights") and Westchester's John Treacy Egan ("Sister Act," "The Producers," "The Little Mermaid").

Where have the Metro Awards been held?

The Metros have been held at a host of different venues through the years. They began in Nyack, then were held jointly in Nyack and White Plains Performing Arts Center (linked by a satellite feed), then at the Paramount Center for the Arts in Peekskill, then Archbishop Stepinac High School in White Plains, last at the massive Concert Hall at Purchase College Performing Arts Center.

And now, Tarrytown Music Hall, where the nominations await.

Reach Peter D. Kramer at pkramer@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on New York State Team: High school musicals: Watch the Metro Awards nominations live