The 2016 Award for emerging musical theatre performers had a worthy winner, though some of the singing was patchy.

Linden Furnell took out the 2016 Rob Guest Endowment Award at last night’s Final, held at Sydney’s Lyric Theatre. The $20,000 cash prize, named in memory of musical theatre performer Rob Guest who died in 2008, is intended to help talented young Australian performers pursue professional development opportunities in the Australian musical theatre industry.

^{Linden Furnell performing at the Final of the 2016 Rob Guest Endowment Award. Photo by Robert Catto}

The judges this year were choreographer/director Kelley Abbey, director Andrew Pole, musical director Guy Simpson, and guest judge Michael James Scott, who has been raising the roof as the genie in Disney’s Aladdin.

Furnell is currently playing Harry in Kinky Boots. In 2009, he left a corporate job to undertake a musical theatre degree in Singapore. His professional credits include Rent (in which he played Roger) and Violet, both at Sydney’s Hayes Theatre Co, and Songs for a New World in Melbourne for Blue Saint Productions.

The Melbourne’s East End Theatre District Artist Development Award, worth $5,000, was awarded to Genevieve Kingsford,...