Entertainment : Erin Horst Wins Best Actress Award

Erin Horst is with Adam Yankowy where both received a Cloris Award

Erin Horst, daughter of Gerald and Marcy Horst of Vinton, was nominated as "Best Actress in a Featured Role, Musical" as a member of the Iowa Stage Theatre Company in the production of "Fun Home."

The Cloris Leachman Excellence in Theatre Arts Awards are held annually and award "Clorises" to honor local theatrical efforts in Iowa. The Cloris Awards were founded in 2015 by three theater critics who desired to honor local theatrical companies and incentivize them. 

The award ceremonies bring together the acting community and highlight the community theaters and their productions. 

This year's ceremony was held at the Hoyt Sherman Place in Des Moines, and Erin said, "Fun Home was an unforgettable experience. The show is so impactful and so relevant in our time. My character Helen Bechdel, is based on a real person, which was a very humbling experience. There's nothing else like stepping into someone else's shoes and living their secrets night after night. I'm just thankful to have been part of such a tremendous cast, and a truly once in a lifetime theatre experience. I'm grateful that I get to do what I love every day in a thriving theatre community, with pretty phenomenal artists by my side."

Erin's next role will be directing the show called, "Pippen" at Drake University where she teaches theatre and dance.

*The Cloris Awards are named for the legendary actress Cloris Leachman, who was born in Des Moines in 1926, started performing at age 7 at Drake University’s Children Theater and continued at the Kendall Playhouse (now the Des Moines Community Playhouse) while a student at Roosevelt High School. She attended Northwestern University and, as Miss Chicago, parlayed a run for the 1946 Miss America crown into a stint on Broadway. She married actor-director-producer George Englund in 1953, moved to Los Angeles in 1954 and raised five children before stepping into the roles that made her a household name in the 1970s. She starred as the nosy landlady Phyllis Lindstrom in “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and its spin-off “Phyllis,” as Frau Blucher in “Young Frankenstein,” and as Nurse Diesel in “High Anxiety.” She won an Oscar for her role as a neglected housewife in the 1971 film “The Last Picture Show” and appeared in many other shows, including “The Facts of Life,” “The Beverly Hillbillies,” “Malcolm in the Middle” and “Dancing with the Stars.”