This is not the Anne Terze- Schwarz moment. This is the Anne Terze-Schwarz year.

To watch the Colorado actor do anything on any stage this year – and she has done it all – was to witness a woman coming fully into her own, not only as a performer but as a person.

When you cover theater for a living, you live for those times when you get to see an actor at the top of her craft, in the perfect role and at just the right time in her career. When it happens, attention must be paid.

That was Terze-Schwarz completely, audaciously, humbly, precisely, vulnerably embodying the lead role of Jenna in “Waitress” at the Arvada Center. Every note, every choice, rang true. It was obvious to anyone within 20 miles of Joe’s Pie Diner that we were watching the kind of performance that only happens once in a great while.

Thing is, in Terze-Schwarz’s case, “Waitress” was simply the cherry on top of a year filled with varied roles, exceptional performances and a singing voice built for Broadway.

She began the year playing Hope Cladwell, the idealistic (and illegitimate!) daughter of a dictatorial businessman in Town Hall Arts Center’s comedy satire “Urinetown.” Alex Miller, editor of onstagecolorado.com, called Terze-Schwarz “simply tremendous” in the role, “with a powerful singing voice and just the right mix of innocence and toughness.”  

In March, she played Cinderella in Colorado Springs Theatreworks’ concert staging of the vocally challenging Sondheim masterpiece “Into the Woods.” In April, she created the role of Gertrude in a developing new local musical called “Miss Manhattan” for CenterStage Theatre in Louisville.

And she was just getting started.

In August, Terze-Schwarz opened Give 5 Productions’ high-stakes staging of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” as the loyal, put-upon Yitzhak. But the plan all along was for her to share the role with Emma Maxfield because Terze-Schwarz also landed what many would consider to be the (overlapping) role of a lifetime: Playing the self-doubting wife Jenna in the Arvada Center’s regional premiere of “Waitress.”

And she was just hitting her stride.

After “Waitress,” Terze-Schwarz immediately pivoted to playing virginal (but not for long) Janet in the new Beehive Productions’ October staging of “The Rocky Horror Musical” at the Denver Improv in Northfield. She’s finishing the year playing no less than Ursula in a splashy staging of “The Little Mermaid” for the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. Of that monster (literally) part, Onstage Colorado’s April Tooke said Terze-Schwarz plays the role to perfection, “the quintessential villain.”

Of that remarkable 2024 character slate, “Hedwig” director Kelly Van Oosbree has two immediate reactions: “One, it’s not a surprise,” she said. “And two, it’s about time.”

Terze-Schwarz has been performing since she was 9 years old. She sang professionally with the Colorado Springs Children’s Chorale for nearly 10 years. She graduated from Doherty High School and was a featured vocalist with the Colorado Springs Philharmonic.

Jenna Moll Reyes, her co-star in “Waitress” and her friend since they studied musical theater together at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, has watched Terze-Schwarz blossom in real time.

“Anne started as a soprano and she learned how to belt in college,” Moll Reyes said. “But it wasn’t until I saw her play Mother in ‘Ragtime’ (at UNC) that I realized this woman can also break your heart as an actor.”

What makes Terze-Schwarz’s ascension so much fun to watch from the sidelines is that she doesn’t really seem to get how good she is. She wasn’t even going to audition for “Waitress” because she didn’t think she had a prayer. When, in fact, she was her director’s answered prayer.

“Everyone praises her voice – and it is beyond praiseworthy,” said Arvada Center Artistic Director Lynne Collins. “But that might overshadow what I think is an amazing skillset as an actor. Her ability to find the honest truth in whatever she does, and to really listen and be present, looks effortless, but that’s the sign of a really talented actor – who also happens to have a voice like an angel.”

Robert Michael Sanders, who directed Terze-Schwarz in “Urinetown,” was not looking over Collins’ shoulder when he offered a similar assessment.

“Yes, she is an amazing singer with pipes of steel that excel at every vocal style,” he said. “Yes, she can put more heart into a song than a Hallmark card on Valentine’s Day. Yes, she is a committed professional who always comes prepared and is always trying to be the best she can be at anything, whether it be comedy or drama.

“These are things we all know.

“But Anne also brings a humility, an honesty and a loyalty that makes her stand out as a great human being. Anne is not afraid to show you on stage who she truly is in life – a strong, vulnerable and truly joyous person.”

That’s because Terze-Schwarz, Van Oosbree added, is utterly void of ego. She tells a series of stories about all the ways Terze-Schwarz set up Maxwell to succeed after she left “Hedwig,”  But the sweetest has to do with, of all things, production photographs.

A professional photographer chronicled the opening weekend, capturing a series of stunning photos of Terze-Schwarz in action. Which meant there would be no similar photographs of Maxwell, who ultimately performed the vast majority of performances. “So during the rehearsal when we were putting Emma in, I noticed Anne was sitting down in front snapping photos –  without being asked – just so we would have some photos of Emma in costume, too. And they were great,” Van Oosbree said. “That’s Anne. More than anything, she is just a sweet, sweet, humble person.”

It’s wild to look back at 2024 now and think that self-doubt and anxiety almost kept Terze-Schwarz from pursuing “Waitress.”

“I told her, ‘Let’s be each other’s cheering squad,” said Moll Reyes – and it clearly worked, because they landed the two lead roles.

That’s why Terze-Schwarz’s greatest accomplishment of 2024 was not any of the characters she created. It was the character she showed in using this time in the spotlight to call attention to the 40 million Americans who struggle with everyday anxiety. Several times during the run of “Waitress,” Terze-Schwarz addressed Arvada Center audiences after the shows as an advocate for the Denver Actors Fund and the affordable mental-health care it makes available to Colorado theater artists onstage and off. All while sharing some of her own experiences with anxiety. Her purpose was to both demystify and destigmatize mental health and encourage anyone struggling to seek support.

Moll Reyes hopes the 2024 True West Award will likewise send a similarly positive message right back to her friend.

“If Anne ever again has a doubt about how talented she is, or about how valued she is in this community, I hope this award reminds her she is on the right path, and that she is doing exactly what she should be doing,” Moll Reyes said. “And that she has a whole community of people behind her who believe in her and are rooting for her.”

Note: The True West Awards, now in their 24th year, began as the Denver Post Ovation Awards in 2001. Denver Gazette Senior Arts Journalist John Moore celebrates the Colorado theater community by revisiting 30 good stories from the past year without categories or nominations.

Unsung hero of the day

Quentin Crump graduated in 2011 from the Denver Center’s now long-defunct National Theatre Conservatory, a graduate-level master’s degree program in acting. Afterward, Crump took a mindful right turn without going anywhere. He joined the DCPA’s security team, which he now leads. That makes him responsible for keeping a large downtown area safe for employees, visitors and thousands of education students.

“He’s involved in everyone’s safety and well-being,” said actor and director Geoffrey Kent. “He makes new people feel welcome. He sees everything. It’s hard to put into words, but he’s an incredible human. And he’s the only security person I know with an MFA.”