The school's drama department was nominated for six Musical Theater Honors Awards by the American Musical Theater of San Jose, which recognizes outstanding musical theater productions put on by Bay Area high schools each year.

What's even better than being nominated? Winning.

Sonnet Sparacino knows that feeling. The Saratoga junior took home the top acting award for Best Supporting Performer by a Female for her performance as Aunt Eller in the school's spring musical, Oklahoma!

The 11th annual Honors Awards took place on May 24 at the Center for the Performing Arts in downtown San Jose. Nominees knew ahead of time they were up for awards, and all nominees received commemorative medallions from the AMTSJ Board of Governors in a special ceremony. The final winners in 10 categories were announced in a Tony Award-like ceremony.

The Saratoga production of Oklahoma! was nominated for Rachel Balma and Chip Kraemer's hair and makeup design; Kat Nakaji and Meg Stevens' costume design; the student orchestra as conducted by Michael Boitz; Varun Sivaram's supporting role as Ali Hakim, Sparacino's supporting role as Aunt Eller; and, the night's top honor, Best Musical.

All schools nominated for Best Musical performed a musical number from their show during the presentation, much like at the Tony Awards.

Sonnet Sparacino says she was backstage with the cast members from Oklahoma! who were performing that night when her name was called as the winner of the award.

"My jaw just dropped. It really was unexpected; what a wonderful surprise," she says. "I went up [on stage to collect my award] and I was making everything up on the spot, but I think it came out OK."

Sparacino says she has acted in every musical at Saratoga High since arriving as a freshman. She says some of her favorite parts to date have been Kate in The Taming of the Shrew and the narrator in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

"Musicals are my favorite," she says. "Musical theater is perfect because even before I was acting, I was dancing. Musical theater pulls together all three--dancing, singing and acting."

Sparacino also gave an intense performance in the school's production of The Laramie Project earlier this year, which received a lot of local attention due to its sensitive and controversial subject matter--homosexuality and hate crimes.

"Laramie Project was very rewarding," she says.

Sparacino is active on the Diversity Task Force on campus, and in the National Honors Society.

"Outside of acting I really like being involved in school," says Sparacino.

In other exciting news, Sparacino has been notified that she has been accepted into New York University's summer theater program.

"They select only 32 students from across the U.S. each year--only 16 girls and 16 boys," she explains.

Sparacino says NYU would definitely be her first choice for college.

"I'm definitely planning on continuing [musical theater] in college, and I'm definitely going to give it a whirl as a possible career," she says. "We'll see, I'm just concentrating on the college part right now."

Sparacino wasn't the only one who received accolades in this year's Honors Awards. Although it is not one of the 10 award categories, junior Danielle Coleman received special recognition in the May 24 ceremony for her solo dance number as the character Dream Laurey in Oklahoma!

"It's very exciting," says Coleman.

Coleman has also been involved with nearly all of the musical productions at Saratoga since coming to the school as a freshman, and she has also performed in other local productions around the Bay Area.

"I used to do a lot of shows at Children's Musical Theater in San Jose," she says. Some of her favorite characters to date have been Tracy in The Philadelphia Story last year, and Mr. Toad in The Wind in the Willows in the sixth grade.

Coleman has also earned her way into a prestigious theater program this summer--she will attend UCLA for six weeks. She says she hopes that experience will be what helps her figure out what she wants to do past high school, and whether or not she will pursue theater as a possible career or another field.

Kathleen Woods, drama director at Saratoga High, says she couldn't be more proud of her students.

"It feels great!" she says of her students' recognition. "They're just amazing; they're very talented and very professional. This is well deserved."

Woods says it is even more special to be recognized, knowing who their competition was.

"There were 1,600 students who participated in the [AMTSJ Honors Awards] program this year, so to be singled out is really pretty spectacular."

Sparacino and Coleman are certainly feeling pretty spectacular in the wake of their visit to the Honors Awards.

"Today, I'm just walking around with a spring in my step," said Sparacino the next day.