The Jimmy Awards Reaches Adolescence and Is Still the Happiest Night on Broadway

The National High School Musical Theatre Awards — better known as the Jimmy Awards — crowned its 14^th pair of winners on Monday night at Broadway’s Minskoff Theatre in an expectedly ebullient ceremony hosted by Corbin Bleu. The Best Actor title went to Langston Lee from the Heller Awards in Austin, Texas, and the Best Actress title went to Lauren A. Marchand from New York City’s Roger Rees Awards.

Both winners performed in character medleys during the Jimmys’ first half, singing samples of the roles that won them their place in this year’s showcase (medleys paying tribute to touring productions and Shakespeare-inspired musicals were also featured in Act 1, with music direction by Geoffrey Ko and choreography by Kiesha Lalama). In the evening’s first medley, Lee demonstrated his mature baritone with a few bars of “My Petersburg” as Anastasia‘s Dmitry. Marchand in turn had the opportunity to close out the final character medley as Frozen‘s Elsa with a Broadway-ready “Let It Go.”

After being announced among the group of eight finalists, they performed solo numbers — Lee singing Jason Robert Brown’s “Wondering” from The Bridges of Madison County (a choice that provoked an excited hubbub among the Minskoff’s mass of JRB fans) and Marchand performing “With You” from Ghost. At the end of the night, they were presented with $25,000 scholarship checks and delivered acceptance speeches with the poise of seasoned professionals (their eloquence alone should be a winning argument for increased arts funding in schools).

Lee and Marchand’s fellow finalists included Maya Sharma, who sang “In My Dreams” from Anastasia; Corbin Drew Ross, who sang “Stranger” from Big Fish; Samia Posadas, who sang “Stupid With Love” from Mean Girls (and belted out an impressive “So Much Better” as Legally Blonde‘s Elle Woods earlier in the show); Christian Strong, who sang “When Words Fail” from Shrek (and delivered a fabulous Lola from Kinky Boots in an earlier medley); Anna Wright, who gave a stellar comedic performance in Oklahoma!‘s “I Cain’t Say No”; and Omar Andre Real, who closed out the solos with “I’m Alive” from Next to Normal.

During the awards presentations — led by Jimmy Awards director and founder Van Kaplan, as well as Broadway producer James L. Nederlander, son of the Jimmys’ namesake James M. Nederlander — Kaplan made note of the Jimmys’ 14-year tenure: “If the Jimmy Awards is our baby, then this year that baby would finally be old enough to enter the Jimmy Awards.”

That sense of a growing legacy was present throughout the evening — from the several mid-show standing ovations offered to the cast of 96 students (the audience comprised a collection of friends, family, and Broadway fanatics who make an annual pilgrimage to the Minskoff), to the illustrious Jimmys alums who returned to the stage that launched their careers. Presenters included two-time Tony nominee and Hadestown star Eva Noblezada, who, in a moment of kismet with this year’s Best Actress, also performed “With You” from Ghost as a 2013 finalist; Wicked star McKenzie Kurtz, who was a Jimmys nominee in both 2013 and 2015; and 2018 Jimmy Award winner Andrew Barth Feldman, who quickly took his talents to the title role of Dear Evan Hansen on Broadway, and just premiered his film No Hard Feelings in which he stars alongside Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence.

Each year, as the Jimmy Awards puts more and more feathers in its overstuffed cap, the annual celebration of teenage talent — and more importantly, high school arts programs — becomes an increasingly entrenched and beloved Broadway tradition. Its growing corpus of Broadway and film stars is certainly something to be celebrated. But the event itself has been steadfast in setting industry politics aside and remains the most wholesomely joyful musical theater jamboree on the Broadway calendar.