Poland actress has a bright future

Remember the name Julia Cooper.

Mahoning Valley residents might not be familiar with her now, but the Poland native appears to be destined for great things in musical theater.

Julia is a senior at Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center, the exclusive private high school in Midland, Pa., that trains budding artists and entertainers.

Last week, she was informed that she won one of the top prizes at the YoungArts Foundation’s annual competition in Florida last month.

From a pool of 10,000 applicants, YoungArts selected 691 of the nation’s best student-artists, age 15 to 18, in theater, voice, jazz, dance, visual arts, writing, design, film and photography, for the competition. Julia emerged as the winner in theater, vying against several dozen others.

As a result of her YoungArts victory, Julia has earned another prestigious honor: She is a candidate for the U.S. Presidential Scholars Program.

Only 160 graduating seniors nationwide are selected for the program. No more than 20 of the nominees will be awarded the scholarships in May.

Julia already has gotten busy writing essays and fulfilling the other requirements for the Presidential Scholars competition.

Julia, and all of her fellow nominees, will attend an expense-paid trip to the White House in June as part of the honor.

In the meantime, she is in the process of auditioning at 10 of the nation’s top universities for theater.

According to Julia’s mother, Sandy, the front-runners are Carnegie-Mellon University, Case Western Reserve, Rutgers and University of Michigan.

During the school year, Julia and her mother stay in a house they own in Midland, Pa., and return to their Poland home on weekends.

For that reason, Julia isn’t active at any Mahoning Valley theaters (although she did do a cabaret show at Selah restaurant in Struthers last summer). But she has been very busy at Lincoln Park, where she has played leading or key roles in several musicals. These include Fiona in “Shrek, the Musical,” Christine in “Phantom of the Opera” and Fantine in “Les Miserables.”

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On the Horizon: Easy Street Productions will present the Mahoning Valley premiere of the new-ish, and brilliantly fun, musical “Peter and the Starcatcher” May 5-14 at Ford Family Recital Hall in downtown Youngstown.