Riverhead High School students earn multiple Teeny Awards nominations

Riverhead High School senior Olivia Sulzer earned a lead-role Teeny Awards nomination for playing Elle Woods in Legally Blonde: The Musical, while Eden Greenwood was nominated in a supporting role for Paulette Buonufonte. The Blue Masques also picked up multiple nominations across acting, choreography and design tied to both Legally Blonde and Descendants: The Musical, giving the district another arts achievement to point to this spring.

The nominations carried weight because the Teeny Awards recognize more than performance onstage. The East End Arts program, which began in 2002 and was inspired by the Tony Awards, includes work behind the curtain as well, from choreography, lighting design and sound to set development, poster design and merchandise organization. East End Arts says the awards involve more than 20 local high schools, about 2,000 teenagers and 50 judges each year, making a nomination a regional marker of achievement rather than a purely school-based honor.

For Riverhead, the recognition also reflects a full year of theater work. Legally Blonde: The Musical ran March 26-29 in the Charles Cardona Auditorium, with general admission tickets priced at $15 and Riverhead students admitted for $5 with ID. Earlier in the school year, the Blue Masques staged Descendants: The Musical from Oct. 30 to Nov. 2, 2025. Together, the two productions showed a program with reach across the cast, the pit of technical crews and the students helping shape the shows visually and choreographically.

The latest nominations fit a pattern for Riverhead High School theater. In 2025, the Blue Masques received 24 Teeny Awards nominations for Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and Something Rotten!, and Something Rotten! won the Judges’ Choice Award in a tie with Westhampton Beach High School’s Les Misérables. In 2023, Riverhead earned 13 nominations for The Prom and Little Shop of Horrors. The 2026 Teeny Awards ceremony is scheduled for June 14, adding another chance for Riverhead students to turn nominations into awards and keep the district’s theater program in the regional spotlight.