The Jimmy Awards 2018

We were given free tickets to the Jimmy Awards for review purposes. Any and all opinions expressed here are our own.

What: The Jimmy Awards

Where: Minskoff Theatre
             1515 Broadway
             New York, NY

When: This event took place on Monday June 25, 2018

Mom - We recently had the opportunity to attend the Jimmy Awards. The Jimmy Awards named after the late James M. Nederlander, who was chairman of the Nederlander Producing Company, are the National High School Theater Awards. High School performers around the country compete in regional competitions around the country based on their performances in their school plays. The winners of these local competitions than get to come to New York City and compete for the Jimmy Awards. There were 80 performers competing in total - 40 boys and 40 girls.

The evening was hosted by Laura Benanti. Ms. Benanti was herself  once a winner of a Rising Star award at the Papermill Playhouse in Milburn, New Jersey. She did a great job hosting and was very warm and funny.

The first part of the show was a series of medleys. Each performer had the opportunity to shine. Some sang a portion of a song they had sang in the show that earned them the right to compete in the Jimmy's. Others sang a portion of a Disney Medley in honor of 25 years of Disney shows on Broadway. Afterwards, 8 finalists were chosen: 4 girls and 4 boys. In the second half each of the finalists sang a solo. Then, the winners were chosen by a distinguished panel of judges that included producers, casting directors and more.

While several different awards were given out, the main awards were Best Performer Female and Best Performer Male. This year's Best Performers were Renee Rapp from North Carolina and Andrew Barth Feldman from New York. We were particularly excited to see Andrew Barth Feldman named one of the winners  since we have enjoyed his performances in several Broadway Workshop productions. However, all of the performers were extremely talented, and their performances were delightful and engaging. We hope to see many of them again performing professionally. Previous Jimmy participants and winners have included Kyle Selig currently starring in Mean Girls, Jai'Len Christine Li Josey currently starring in Spongebob Square Pants the musical and Eva Noblezada who starred in last year's revivial of Miss Saigon.   All in all, it was an honor to have the opportunity to cover the 2018 Jimmy Awards, and we hope to have the opportunity to cover them again next year and see next year's crop of talented performers.

For further information about the Jimmy Awards, visit www.jimmyawards.com/

And that's our view. Tune in tomorrow for Tips for Tuesday.

Photo credits: All photos supplied by the Broadway League