Presented by Equity’s Advisory Committee on Chorus Affairs, the ACCA Award honors the “distinctive talents and contributions made by the original chorus members of a Broadway musical.” The award will be presented June 21 during Equity’s National Council meeting.
The 24 individual recipients of the 2016 ACCA Award—all of whom were on chorus contracts and part of the Shuffle Along cast on the musical’s April 28, 2016, Broadway opening night—are Phillip Attmore, Alexandria Bradley, Darius de Haas, C.K. Edwards, Afra Hines, Curtis Holland, Jason Holley, Adrienne Howard, Lee Howard, Kendrick Jones, Lisa La Touche, Alicia Lundgren, JC Montgomery, Erin N. Moore, Janelle Neal, Brittany Parks, Arbender Robinson, Karissa Royster, Britton Smith, Zurin Villanueva, Christian Dante White, Joseph Wiggan, Pamela Yasutake and Richard Riaz Yoder.
Five of the Shuffle Along cast have previously received the award: Afra Hines (In the Heights); Kendrick Jones, JC Montgomery and Christina Dante White (The Scottsboro Boys); and Arbender Robinson (Beautiful).
In reviewing the chorus of each Broadway musical that opened in the 2015-16 theatrical season, ACCA considered “the chorus requirements made by each production’s director, choreographer and musical director; the caliber of technical skill used to execute those requirements; and the unique contributions made by the entire chorus to the overall production.”
Past recipients of the ACCA award are the original chorus members of Legally Blonde (2007), In the Heights (2008), West Side Story (2009), Fela! (2010), The Scottsboro Boys (2011), Newsies (2012), Pippin (2013), Beautiful (2014) and An American in Paris (2015).
