{"id":36443,"date":"2025-06-20T12:35:21","date_gmt":"2025-06-20T16:35:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=36443"},"modified":"2025-06-26T18:02:07","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T22:02:07","slug":"kings-marissa-forte-is-auroras-2025-teen-idol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/kings-marissa-forte-is-auroras-2025-teen-idol\/","title":{"rendered":"King\u2019s Marissa Forte is Aurora\u2019s 2025 Teen Idol"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Marissa Forte, a Grade 11 student at King City Secondary School, was crowned Aurora\u2019s 2025 Teen Idol after a stellar performance at the Aurora Performing Arts Festival on Saturday morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Held at the Aurora Town Square Performance Hall and co-hosted by the Town of Aurora and Marquee Theatrical Productions, the Performing Arts Festival saw youth contestants from kindergarten students through Grade 12, face off in a singing, dancing, and dramatic categories, with the winner of the Senior Vocal Category winning Teen Idol Honours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forte wowed the crowds with her rendition of \u201cBring Me to Life\u201d by Evanescence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t think it was my best performance, so I wasn\u2019t sure if I was going to win, but I am very, very surprised because everyone else is so amazing,\u201d said Forte. \u201cI am very proud of myself and I\u2019m also proud of everyone else who performed. I\u2019m just really excited!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First runner up in the Senior Vocal category \u2013 and in the Aurora Teen Idol stakes \u2013 was Nathan Fiscaletti, a Grade 11 student at Pickering College, whose rendition of \u201cEmpty Chairs and Empty Tables\u201d from Les Miserables really stood out to judges. Fiscaletti also took home top honours in the Senior Acting Category with an evocative monologue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year\u2019s competition was judged by actress\/vocalist Erica Santillana, Theatre Aurora President Neill Kernohan, and vocalist Ysi Cattle, herself a former Aurora Teen Idol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WINNERS:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Junior Dance: Kari Lee<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mini-Vocal: Nick Motahari<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Junior Vocal: Jessica Tang<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Intermediate Dance: Charlotte Danson<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Intermediate Vocal: Eleanor Shickluna<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senior Acting Category: Nathan Fiscaletti<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senior Dance: Rosanna Zhang<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senior Vocal: Marissa Forte<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eight semi-finalists were selected to vie for the top prize, but when three came down ill before the Festival itself, it was down to a top five of: Zoe Verhofstadt, 13, with ABBA\u2019s \u201cSlipping Through My Fingers\u201d; Grade 8 student Benjamin Davidoff with Stevie Wonder\u2019s \u201cOverjoy\u201d; 16-year-old Emma Gamley with \u201cNot for the Life of Me\u201d from Thoroughly Modern Millie; along with Forte and FIscaletti.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always loved singing,\u201d said Forte. \u201cMy grandfather is a singer; he sings in Spanish a bunch, so I took that and I\u2019ve been singing since I was a kid. And then I recently started theatre. I do gravitate more towards musical theatre, but I do also like Evanescence and pop-rock because I think it fits my voice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was a view shared by Sheryl Thomas, founder of Marquee Theatrical Productions who said Forte demonstrated \u201cphenomenal power\u201d in her voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHoly smoke!\u201d she said when asked for a capsule review of Forte\u2019s performance. \u201cThe runner-up also had an incredibly passionate performance, and both are well-deserving. It was a hard decision, though; I mean, there was some great, great talent in that category all together, as there always seems to be. They\u2019re semi-finalists for a reason, so their expertise is at a certain level already.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of the Top 8 in the Senior Vocal category will have the chance to perform at upcoming Town events, including the upcoming Concerts in the Park Summer Series that launches at Town Park on Wednesday, July 2, at 7 p.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marissa Forte, a Grade 11 student at King City Secondary School, was crowned Aurora\u2019s 2025 Teen Idol after a stellar performance at the Aurora Performing Arts Festival on Saturday morning. Held at the Aurora Town Square Performance Hall and co-hosted by the Town of Aurora and Marquee Theatrical Productions, the Performing Arts Festival saw youth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":36444,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/2025-06-20-03.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-9tN","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 07:26:22","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36443"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36447,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36443\/revisions\/36447"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}