2025 Jimmy Awards field report
Hi!
Question: how many years have I now attended the National High School Musical Theatre Awards, AKA the Jimmy Awards, despite living across the country and not knowing any of the teen nominees personally?
Answer:
It was not easy to get into the Jimmys this year, y’all. My beloved niche interest isn’t so niche anymore, and what I’ve gravely predicted for years finally came true: there wasn’t a general public ticket sale. Instead there was a digital lottery that didn’t even announce winners until the day before my flight to New York, and my squad of Jimmys regulars and I scored as many tickets as The Last Five Years scored Tony nominations, which is to say none. But! If you know what you want, then you go and you find it and you get it. Between the five of us, we asked enough people to enter the lottery on our behalf that we managed to miraculously all get in — shoutout to Sam for hooking Raina and Emily up, my mom for covering Kayla and Michael, and Madeline for bringing me as her plus-one.
Footage of me stomping into the Minskoff Theatre on June 23, 2025:
Believe it or not, I’d made peace with potentially missing the Jimmys this year — after all, few people in the world have been blessed to go as many times as I have (scary flex), and there’s always the free livestream to fall back on. Well, consider my peace shattered. This year’s show was so spectacular, so tailored to my specific interests, so life-affirming that watching it from home would’ve destroyed me. No, I can’t ever miss the Jimmys IRL. I can’t and I won’t. Who knows what lengths I’ll have to go to in the future to secure my ticket, but hey: if the end is right, it justifies the beans. Sondheim would’ve counted sexual favors as beans, right?
Onto my commentary! I’ve hyperlinked videos throughout, but here’s the 2025 Jimmy Awards YouTube playlist if you want to follow along.
THE OPENING OF THE OPENING NUMBER
Before the show each year, my friends and I convene at Junior’s and make predictions. We place bets in a dozen or so categories, including:
Most featured musical of the night
Three roles we’ll see in the Character Medleys
Theme of the Feature Group Number
Which of the core three Jimmys audience member archetypes we’ll be seated next to: Drama Teacher, Aunt, or Gay Guy
Number of kids who got on their first plane for the Jimmys
The category worth the most points (yes, it’s a weighted points-based betting system) is one Big Swing prediction: something specific that would shock and amaze us on the slim chance it occurred. Raina’s Big Swing was that the show would open with a black-and-white video of the nominees entering the theatre from the street a la the walk Tom Francis goes on each performance of Sunset Boulevard. Kyle and I have been hyperfixated on Sunset since we saw it in December; the music lives on our Spotify On Repeat playlists, and not just the essential Nicole songs — like, we’re singing “Betty’s Pitch” at each other on a daily basis. I couldn’t have dreamed that the Jimmys would go to unprecedented lengths to pay homage in this way, but lo and behold…
They taught the world new ways to dream!!!!! Seconds into the show and I was already freaking out.
THE REST OF THE OPENING NUMBER
The one way the livestream beats the in-theatre experience is that you can’t hear shit during the opening number over the audience screaming screaming screaming. I have to strain for my life to hear which songs from the current Broadway season make it into the medley; it was so bad this year that at intermission I got corrected for saying, “No MJ for once!” Humiliating…
I don’t have an issue with pop songs weaseling their way into the mix via jukebox musicals because at the end of the day, it’s fun to hear a bunch of kids belt “Roar" by Katy Perry. But if we’re doing pop songs, couldn’t we get “Green Light” from John Proctor is the Villain?? Alas, the Jimmys do not fuck with plays-with-music. Justice for Lorde and justice still for “Masquerade” from Stereophonic last year!
I’m a sucker for when they string lyrics from different songs together to make a sentence, so I loved, “Now you’re in New York… and I’m a part of that… and I think to myself what a wonderful world.” (Hell’s Kitchen → The Last Five Years → A Wonderful World: The Louis Armstrong Musical.)
Would you believe this was the only Jason Robert Brown this year??
Just like at the Tonys, the Maybe Happy Ending song choice was, um, a choice… but at least this one — “Goodbye, My Room” — was motivated by the chance to mash it up with a ballad-y “The Room Where It Happens.”
Best stage picture of the night was during the “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General”/“Cell Block Tango” mashup, which was also a classic Boys Do This, Girls Do That bit.
A full circle moment lost on most of the audience but clocked by Emily1 was that the girl singing “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” played Young Nala on The Lion King national tour from 2017-2019 and now in 2025 got to sing Adult Nala’s song on the show’s Broadway stage. 🥺
This school year was the first time Hadestown: Teen Edition was licensed to schools, so “Wait for Me” in the opening number was just the tip of the “The Jimmy Awards Present: Hadestown” iceberg.
Years of Jimmying meant my friends and I were locked in with our predictions this year, and I nailed the exact lyric (from BOOP!) that closed the number: “I’m where I wanna be… WELCOME TO THE JIMMY AWARDS!”
I saw BOOP! the day before the Jimmys and had this conversation all weekend:
Me: “I’m seeing/saw BOOP!”
Friend: “What’s BOOP!?”First off, you could probably guess that it’s the Betty Boop musical. Second, you’re telling me you haven’t been tracking BOOP! since the 2023 announcement that Jasmine Amy Rogers (Jimmys ‘17 Finalist) would star in the Chicago tryout??
I loved BOOP! and also thought BOOP! was wincingly bad in four major categories. Happy to sidebar about BOOP! whenever.
The woman in front of us at BOOP! had all the seats around her to herself (omen that 72 hours later BOOP! would announce its closing) and had the audacity to put her BARE FEET up on the chair in front of her. I was scandalized. Is nothing sacred anymore? Not even Broadway? NOT EVEN BOOP!???
THE CHARACTER MEDLEYS
MEDLEY 1: Two-time Jimmy Awards host Josh Groban: “We’ve got a politician, a drunk, and a lonely hunchback. That’s either the start of your weird uncle’s most offensive joke or the makeup of our first medley!”
Hat trick alert! And no, I’m not just talking about the Drowsy Chaperone’s turban falling off. This was the third consecutive year with a Urinetown Penny featured in a medley.
We’ll probably get a fourth next year — “The good Lord made us so we’d piss each day until we piss away” is irresistible, and so is the plunger prop. Consider it certified a Jimmys Classic™️.
I used to dislike when medleys had two nominees in the same role because it usually felt tipped in one’s favor, but the Jimmys creative team’s gotten better at balancing the matchups. They’ve also leaned into the songs being duets, and when a second Jack Kelly stepped forward to join in on “Santa Fe,” Madeline and I reached for each other and unintentionally slid into the Ariana Grande/Cynthia Erivo Holding Space finger grab.
I’m not anti-Newsies “Santa Fe,” but what I would GIVE to hear a RENT “Santa Fe”…
The show tune I’ve listened to the most since hearing it at the Jimmys this year is “Buenos Aires.” I’m completely unfamiliar with Evita, and this performance made me go, “I need the Jamie Lloyd West End revival to have the juice to transfer here so I can get properly into this.” I’ve actually had trouble sleeping for the last week because I keep getting Patti LuPone wailing this stuck in my head right before bed.
Another show I don’t know is The Secret Garden, but tbh that one seems like a fucking snooze.
I’d like to note that my rude opinion is about the musical, not this performance. At the start of the show, Josh Groban made an appeal to the livestream audience to be mindful of their comments, reminding everyone that the nominees are “real human beings up here who can read.” I thought to myself, “Who in the world is commenting on these kids online?” and then was like, “Oh, literally me.” So yeah, not cyberbullying the Medley 1 Secret Garden kid, just the musical’s original creative team/maybe any high school theatre director who picks it for their school.
The Drowsy Chaperone was my favorite musical I did in high school, so even though I’m meh on “As We Stumble Along” — couldn’t we get a Janet Van de Graaff once in a while? — I’m happy to see it almost every year because high schools should be doing this show. As I mentioned, this Chaperone lost her turban, but she didn’t lose her cool and stayed in character scooping it up. Brava!
The rest of the group whispering “plumble” to her was a nice directing choice.
MEDLEY 2: “A baker, the owner of an inn, a single mom, and someone allergic to cats. Hallmark, I’ve got your next Christmas movie right here! Also it’s our next medley!”
Most Random Musical Award goes to the kid whose high school did The Theory of Relativity, a show I’d never heard of with a threadbare Wikipedia page:
Was this actually the most produced high school show in 2020 and 2021? Why? Is it Zoom-friendly? Does anyone know anything about this, and if so, can you get me up to speed?
There’s plenty to get into later about Jimmy Award Winner Fabiola Carabolla Quijada, but for now I’ll just say: missed opportunity that when she sang the lyric “stay with me” from her Big Fish song, it didn’t transition into this medley’s Witch singing “Stay With Me” from Into the Woods. 🤷🏻♂️ Could’ve also done something with Medley 4’s Ursula for a Big Fish/Little Mermaid moment, but maybe that connection is better read than sung.
When a high schooler makes it all the way to the Jimmys for their performance in Les Mis and it’s not Eponine, not Valjean, but…
…you know her “Castle on a Cloud” verse is going to go harder than it has anyyy business going.
With five nomination-friendly roles, Into the Woods is probably the most represented show in the medleys throughout Jimmys history. For me, it’s worth the price of entry for those performances alone; hearing exceptional renditions of these God-tier songs on an annual basis is more important for my health than my PCP and dentist appointments combined. I’ll take any flavor of the roles, but the Witch and Baker in this medley channeled Bernadette Peters and Chip Zien in a way that outdid my PCP, dentist, ENT, and dermatologist. I don’t have a chiropractor, but if I did, that too!
The reveal that this nominee was closing the medley with “The Winner Takes It All” from Mamma Mia! made the audience audibly swoon.
My one note: I wish the adults had let her go on without the tool belt? The overalls say “Donna” on their own… Or at least put some tools in the tool belt… THIS IS A NOTE FOR THE ADULTS BACKSTAGE, NOT THE TEEN GIRL WHO SLAYED. DON’T COME FOR ME, JOSH GROBAN.
MEDLEY 3: “Next up we have an ill-fated couple, a con artist, a goth guy, and a woman who’s not leaving. Eat your heart out, Love Island — it’s our next medley.” 10 points to me! My Big Swing prediction was an ill-fitting Love Island reference in the medley intros.
Loved this Gomez Addams and the accompanying group choreo during his song.
Natasha from Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812: 🎶 I’ll never be this happy again 🎶
Me: “Same, girl.”
Congratulations to Medley 3’s Eurydice and Orpheus, both selected from a pool of four Eurydice/Orpheus nominees to be the inaugural Hadestown medley performances.
Last year I wrote about Alyssa Dorsey’s medley performance of “I Will Always Love You” from The Bodyguard, and this year she was back to sing “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” from Dreamgirls. Alyssa was a senior this year, which is a shame because I want to see a third round of her teachers picking a school show with her specifically in mind for a powerhouse number.
Not sure exactly why two Frank Abagnale Jr.’s singing “Goodbye” from Catch Me If You Can made me cry, but I sure did.
MEDLEY 4: “A Greek god, a woman trying to get over her boyfriend, and two guys free climbing a bean stalk. Welcome to your first day of CrossFit — and it’s our next medley!”
DOUBLE EPONINES, LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOO
This diva-off had everything:
2 little caps ✅
2 big trenches ✅
4 fingerless gloves ✅
Holding hands while harmonizing on “a world that’s full of happiness that I have never knooooooooooooooown” ✅
Watching it back on YouTube I am clocking the manicure lol
This Ursula was like, “Lemme give you as many runs as I have tentacles”… Go ahead and tell us you’re going to Michigan in the fall without telling us!
Why did I think the Greek god mentioned in the medley setup would be Percy Jackson? He’s a demi-god, dummy… Anyway, Hermes was a huge slay.
CUNTY JUDAS ISCARIOT, LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOO
Whenever I hear the opening note of “Giants in the Sky” at the Jimmys, I collapse against my seatmate.
MEDLEY 5: “A law student, a dancer, a scientist assistant, and a chimney sweep. One of these things was on my career aptitude test. I would be a fantastic chimney sweep.”
Medley 5… Medley 5… I have to turn off bullet points for this one. This is what the Jimmys are ABOUT, man.
I was already beside myself when the lights went up and I spotted what was unmistakably an A Chorus Line Cassie, but as I took in the rest of the group and it dawned on me that the “law student” wasn’t a classic Elle Woods but an unprecedented VIVIENNE... I willed time to stop, and it worked. The boy on stage singing “Chim Chim Cher-ee” slowed to quarter-tempo, I retreated to my mind palace, and I had this conversation with myself:
“Okay, David. You are living in a perfect moment. A moment where you don’t know yet if the 2025 medleys will end with a barnburner “Legally Blonde (Remix)” or “The Music and the Mirror,” two songs that stir your soul so hard that your shit spills all over the place. Take a deep breath and savor this. Be completely present so you can remember it forever. This is going to be a memory you can turn to during any hardship for instant relief. Take it all in so you can live inside it forever. ‘Chim Chim Cher-ee’ is almost over, time to get back to the Minskoff.”
It was a stellar medley across the board. Of the five Hadestown medley performances — and I’ll stress again that 14 kids were Hadestown nominees — my favorite was probably Medley 5’s Hermes; Aldolpho was fun as hell; Inga was delightful and her yodeling made up for the lack of Floyd Collins in the opening number.
And then:
“The Music and the Mirror” won out for the closing spot, and rightfully so. Is there a more apt song for the Jimmys? You don’t even have to act. Cassie danced her way into the finals and I leapt to my feet, screaming and applauding, completely blissed out.
THE FEATURE GROUP NUMBER
A clear indicator of the Jimmys’ current clout: Lin-Manuel Miranda showed up just to introduce the group number. (Calling it now that he hosts next year.) Lin set us up for “Ready to Rise,” a “coming of age” number that was also kind of about it being morning? This was the best group number since the 2019 Wicked tribute — to quote one of the kids in the Jimmy Week in Review video, it was just banger after banger. I felt bad last year when they changed the rules so the group number kids aren’t in consideration to be finalists, but my thinking’s changed: how nice to have the pressure off so you can just have fun! I was salty when I didn’t get leads in high school, but then I had so much more fun in the chorus than I ever would’ve as, like, Professor Callahan. Anyway…
Out: “0 to 60 in 3.5.” In: “slowed-down ‘Good Morning Baltimore’ into ‘You Can’t Stop the Beat’ in 3.5.”
Obsessed with this diva:
Kids in the group numbers used to have to recite insane copy about the number’s theme in between songs, and while it’s for the best that they let that die, it was entertaining. That itch got scratched here during “Opening Up” when a boy got the speaking line, “Make that coffee strong enough to chew!”
These poor girls struggling to tie their aprons, sing to make Sara Bareilles proud, and hit their marks all at the same time…
Triple threats, every last one of ‘em.
“When I Grow Up” from Matilda doesn’t do anything for me. Sorry!
Not to make you feel old, but when the soloist for “Purpose” from Avenue Q found a penny from the year he was born, that was a 2007 penny.
The “gotta find my
purposecorner of the sky” Avenue Q → Pippin transition? Perfection. And a dozen boys singing “Corner of the Sky” together? Okay, so you want me to WEEP…I kind of thought more would happen with the umbrella props than just opening them and posing, but not everything can be the 2019 Wicked tribute ribbon twirling, I guess.
“WAITING FOR LIFE” FROM ONCE ON THIS ISLAND PERFORMANCE WITH LACHANZE IN THE AUDIENCE, LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOO.
Opening with “You Can’t Stop the Beat” and closing with “Footloose” is just so correct. Those songs are sisters, and not just any sisters: they could co-star in an Encores! production of Side Show.
I adored “Ready to Rise,” but let me be clear about something: you can’t claim to be a coming-of-age medley without any Spring Awakening.
THE FINALISTS
Usually by intermission I have a few kids in mind I’d like to see move on to the finals, but this year my mind went blank from too many incredible performances. When the names were called, I was particularly glad to see Kinsley Stephens (Medley 3 Eurydice), Kayla Rae (Medley 5 Cassie), and third-time nominee and second-time finalist Fabiola Carabolla Quijada. The whole list of finalists in performance order:
JJ Korkin — “Jenny’s Blues” from It Shoulda Been You.
Chris Hayes — “She Loves Me” from She Loves Me. Winner winner chicken dinner — and Michael’s finalist song prediction!
Adam Bouchachia — “Thin Air” from Amelie. Would’ve been my pick for winner, but he’s a sophomore (!), so hopefully he’ll be back.
Kayla Rae — “I’m Breaking Down” from Falsettos. Great voice, comedic chops, and use of the space. Loved.
Dawson Fullingim — “I Am Aldolpho” from The Drowsy Chaperone. Bad luck that someone else sang his song earlier in the night, but still an excellent (and different!) rendition. Btw this kid is a Jimmys returner and an Oklahoma football state champ.
Seger Ott-Rudolph — “If I Loved You” from Carousel.
Kinsley Stephens — “I Cain’t Say No” from Oklahoma!
Fabiola Carabolla Quijada — “Astonishing” from Little Women. I mean, of course she won. An undeniable talent singing one of the Jimmys Classics™️, the song I sang to myself at the start of my AIDS/LifeCycle ride earlier in the month and one that’s been glaringly missing from the show the last few years. When I say the 2025 Jimmy Awards felt tailored to my specific interests, I’m talking about moments like this. If you’ve made it this far in the newsletter and haven’t clicked any of my helpful lil hyperlinks, do yourself a favor and watch this performance. Astonishing at last is right! Get it in the “Christopher Columbus!” compilation ASAP. It was the perfect end to a perfect night.
THE CLOSING NUMBER
I lied right above this. The actual perfect end to the night was when 110 teens sang “Let Me Be Your Star” from Smash. I couldn’t believe the song was missing from the opening medley, but of course they were saving it for the closer. It took 13 years for NBC’s Smash to make it to Broadway only to close after three months, but God’s plan all along was clearly for this song to have its moment at the Jimmys. ❤️
STRAY THOUGHTS
If Josh Groban can keep Lin-Manuel Miranda at bay, I’d love to see him host again. He’s a charming improviser during technical issues, quite convincing when he tells the nominees that their lives won’t be over if they don’t win, and clearly loves the gig. Pull a Fabiola, Josh!
Fabiola’s threepeat means she’s seen MJ: The Musical three years in a row. Do with that information what you will.
I got my Wishful Prediction, which was no Beast!
One of the nominees is a 4th generation farmer, 12 were on their first trip to New York, and 5 got on their first plane. Kinda crazy that 98 had already been to New York, right?
The only reason Andrew Barth Feldman wasn’t in the building was that he was in a Hello, Dolly! benefit concert at Carnegie Hall that night, but don’t worry, he did make an appearance at rehearsals.
Curious why the fancy group dinner this year was at Carmine’s instead of Sardi’s…
“I was born too soon and I started too late” —Labubu on its absence from the medley intro jokes and the Week in Review video
One of the two Teacher Award winners was named Elena Ferrante-Martin — okay, My Brilliant Drama Teacher!
Emily and Kayla did not appreciate when I explained to Madeline that the two of them have encyclopedic Jimmys knowledge by saying, “They track the kids.”
The Playbill lists everyone’s nominated roles, and I hate to inform you that we were robbed of seeing a 16-year-old girl from Orlando play Diana from Next to Normal in the medleys.
Speaking of the Playbill, here’s a list I put together of all the musicals represented in the nominee pool in popularity order:
Hadestown (14)
Les Miserables (8)
Into the Woods (7)
The Addams Family (4)
Big Fish (4)
Newsies (4)
9 to 5 (3)
Anastasia (3)
Alice by Heart (3)
Catch Me if You Can (3)
Cinderella (3)
Legally Blonde (3)
Mamma Mia! (3)
Mary Poppins (3)
Urinetown (3)
Beauty and the Beast (2)
Curtains (2)
The Drowsy Chaperone (2)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (2)
The Little Mermaid (2)
Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 (2)
The Prom (2)
Shrek (2)
Something Rotten (2)
A Chorus Line (1)
Anything Goes (1)
Cabaret (1)
Carrie (1)
Crazy For You (1)
Dream Girls (1)
Elf (1)
Evita (1)
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1)
Jesus Christ Superstar (1)
The Lightning Thief (1)
Matilda (1)
Next to Normal (1)
Pippin (1)
The Secret Garden (1)
Seussical (1)
Singin’ in the Rain (1)
Six (1)
The SpongeBob Musical (1)
Tarzan (1)
The Theory of Relativity (1)
Tuck Everlasting (1)
Young Frankenstein (1)
You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown (1)
See you next year!
Or Kayla? Both? Anyway, thanks queen(s)/thanks to all my Jimmys girls whose opinions and observations I’ve probably claimed as my own somewhere in here!
justice still for “Masquerade” !!!
You certainly are dedicated to the Jimmys, David! I enjoyed reading your “report.”