Freshman Liam Ginsburg won the Roger Rees Award for Best Actor for his performance in the Sock ‘n’ Buskin show “Bright Star.” The honor came May 22 for his playing of the role of Billy Cane, a soldier who comes back from World War II and finds out his mother has passed away. The musical follows Cane’s journey as he searches for success in the big city.

“Right from the start, I was trying to embrace this character, and I did so in my audition and in my call back,” said Ginsburg. “I think it’s because I portrayed just in being myself the traits that Billy portrays as his character. I tried to show as much passion as I could. I think they thought I could play the role because I connected to the role.”

The Roger Rees Awards are given to an outstanding actor and actress and an upcoming actor and actress from the greater New York metropolitan area for performances in musical theater. Sock ‘n’ Buskin is the drama group at Pelham Memorial High School.

“It felt incredible—it’s one of the greatest honors I have ever had in my life, and when I got up there and I took the award, I felt like my hard work paid off,” Ginsburg said.

“Bright Star” was Ginsburg’s first show since he did “Mary Poppins” in 2019 for the Pelham Children’s Theater. He didn’t do any of the middle school productions but is glad he is doing theater in high school.

“One of the things I love about acting is that acting is one way that you can make people feel emotion and emotion is a powerful thing,” he said. “Emotion can motivate you to do something or motivate you to change or motivate you to stay the same. But either way, emotion is important, and acting can make people feel emotion and getting to have that power on stage to reach out and touch someone emotionally is such an amazing thing that I love so much.”