Field report from the Jimmy Awards

Hi!

I was in New York the last weekend of June and had this conversation multiple times:

New Yorker: Are you just in town for Pride?

Me: I’m actually not here for Pride. Do you know the Jimmy Awards?

New Yorker: ?

Me: It’s the National High School Musical Theatre Awards. I’m in town for that.

New Yorker: Oh, do you know one of the high schoolers?

Me: Personally? No, none of them.

New Yorker: And you-

Me: Flew here from LA, yeah.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Jimmy’s, you really should read Natalie Walker’s 2018 deep dive for Vulture. I can’t explain them better, and I don’t want to. ❤️ Tickets to the show are available to the public, so in 2019 I went with my friends Raina and Emily and had an unparalleled Broadway experience. The show is a blast if you’re a musical theatre fan, but it’s like the ultimate lucid dream if you’re a former subpar-talent theatre kid who never got the lead (coughcoughcough). Living vicariously through the superstar teens walloped me with the agony and ecstasy of high school theatre all over again; I’m not exaggerating even a little when I say I cried the entire show.

My friends and I vowed at the 2019 Jimmy’s to attend every year, come hell or high water – then hell came and shut it down for two years (last year there was a virtual show, but kids singing in front of green screens in their bedrooms doesn’t hit as hard). Taking my seat at the Minskoff Theatre the other week was a pinch-me moment, a moment I’d been longing for since the start of the Pandemic. For the first time, I felt… wicked.

I cried less this year, but I once again had a life-affirming, heart-bursting time. And then I immediately rewatched the show on YouTube!

Below I’ve collected some of my thoughts and feelings – if you want to check out the source material, here’s the Jimmy’s ‘22 YouTube playlist.

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OPENING NUMBER

• The start of the show feels like jumping out of a plane. The teens stomp on stage and the crowd goes fucking NUTS – thunderous applause, screaming… It makes the audience reactions on Glee seem grounded, subtle even. The YouTube videos can’t convey how loud and rowdy the upper mezzanine gets.

• I personally lost my shit when they bellowed Six’s “And tonight… we are… LIIIIIIIIIIIVE!” What a joyful fact! We are live for the first time since 2019! Aaaah!

• The opening mash-up is my favorite part of the show. Not to invoke Glee in 2 out of 3 bullet points, but Ryan Murphy was onto something when he invented mash-ups. He then went mad with power and used mash-ups for evil, but the basic formula of “let’s combine something you like with something else you like” is a solid formula. Songs I was particularly gagged to hear snippets of: “Don’t Rain On My Parade,” “Lead Us Out Of the Night,” “All I Really Want,” and “Being Alive.”

  • Poll: did they place “Being Alive” in the opening number instead of the Sondheim tribute because he’s, you know…?

• We speculated before the show whether or not they’d include a song from MJ: The Musical in the opening, which they did (“Beat It”).

• Another reason I love the opening: it’s basically the only time all the nominees are performing at once, and you can’t beat that wall of sound.

• I do cringe at some of the lyrical rewrites to make the opener “about” the Jimmy’s, like changing “an angsty, gay, Black man” to “an angsty Broadway fan.” But when they ended the number with, “When the days are hell nothing can compare to the little bit of Eden in New York Times Square… Welcome to the Jimmy Awards!” I was like okaaaay, intense but accurate…

MEDLEYS

• The biggest shakeup at the 2022 Jimmy’s was the choice to de-gender the character medleys, which made them SO MUCH BETTER. The character interactions were funnier, the talent gap between girls and boys (girls rule boys drool) was less noticeable, and the backing vocal mix was, uh, mixier.

• This year’s medleys had fewer of the mainstays - no Jo March, no Drowsy Chaperone, no Baker or his Wife. That said, we did still get Eponine (high pressure after this 2018 option up), Cinderella, Audrey, Seymour, and Beast.

  • The Beast is always at the Jimmy’s and I am oooover it/him. Directors pick Beauty and the Beast when they know they have a star senior boy for once, but to what end? “If I Can’t Love Her” ??? Do The Last Five Years instead, you cowards.

• Gay People love to use the colloquialism “X is my Super Bowl,” but the analogy loses something when X isn’t as stats-heavy as football. When I call the Jimmy’s my Super Bowl, I mean that when Gabi Ilg sang “Lost in the Brass” from Band Geeks, I leaned over and whispered “this is what Maggie Gidden sang for her solo in 2017!”

• I went through the Playbill and almost 10% of nominees were in their high school’s production of Bright Star. I’ll bite: what is Bright Star?

I Googled “Bright Star” and this was one of the common searches

• Ok that Bright Star Playbill stat made me hungry for more data, so I made a spreadsheet of every show/role nominated this year. Check that out here.

• Jimmy nominees are usually upperclassmen, but this kid has to be a freshman, right?

  

• Spongebob: the Musical has hit the high schools and subsequently the Jimmy’s medleys! Spongebob and Squidward were both crowd-pleasers.

  • When I see a Spongebob or a Matilda or a (ugh) Beast, I can’t help but think, “It’s the titular role!”

• Another Jimmy’s debut: Percy Jackson. Huh!

• The woman sitting on my right was a high school theatre teacher from Arizona with a student in Medley #2. We clutched each other during his solo, which he killed – we love you, Evan!!! I think I would pass out from nerves if I were at the show rooting for a loved one instead of the random kids I attach to during Act I.

• I was glad to see a Janet from Drowsy instead of the usual Chaperone. “Show Off” > “As We Stumble Along.”

• You know a kid is about to turn it out when they’ve made it all the way to the Jimmy’s in a random ass role i.e. Mae Peterson in Bye Bye Birdie.

• There is usually at least one incredibly confident and flamboyant twink who I wish I could’ve been in high school – this year it was Medley #3’s Pippin Leading Player.

• Something that made me lol: there was an Anna as Anya in Anastasia.

• “The medleys sparkle when the disparate characters are recontextualized so their fragments form a cohesive conversation.” -me in my rough draft acting like this Substack is my AP Lit exam. What I mean to say is: character interactions like Ariel singing adoringly to Squidward make the audience howl with laughter.

  

  It’s nice that the medleys in Act I showcase how playful/clever/heartwarming musical theatre can be, because the finalist solos in Act II are pretty much just about Devastation. Hey, I’ve described the plot structure of Into the Woods!

• AND SPEAKING OF INTO THE WOODS, Medley #4 delivered Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella singing to Sondheim’s Cinderella AND THEN Matilda pointing at the pair on her lyric, “Cinderella in the cella.” Bump, set, spike! Sports!!!

• Medley #4 also featured the perfect execution of the Jimmy’s trope where two of the same character play off of each other. “Suddenly Seymour is standing beside you” sung to Seymour by Seymour?? I’m astral projecting.

• Adonza from Man of La Mancha: “You showed me the sky, but what good is the sky to a creature who will never do better than crawl?”

  Me: “Fuck!”

REHEARSAL WEEK VIDEO PACKAGE TEA

• This year’s rehearsal week was held at Julliard instead of the usual NYU – anyone have thoughts on the difference that might’ve made behind the scenes??

• Stats that made the audience aww: 4 nominees got on a plane for the very first time for the Jimmy’s (I’m sobbing), 24 were in NYC for the first time, and 29 saw their first Broadway show.

• Great soundbite #1: “It’s LaChanze, it’s LaChanze, oh my gosh it’s LaChanze, and then he was like ‘LaChanze’ and everybody was like ‘aaah how did you know?’ and I was like, ‘I knew because I know.’”

• Great soundbite #2: “My town is a lot different than New York City… [this is] the most amount of buildings I’ve ever seen in one space. I’ve never seen this many people.”

GROUP NUMBERS

• Group Number #1 was a tribute called “Walls Yet to Climb” that honored songs written and composed for the American theatre by women. Maybe I’m missing something, but isn’t Come From Away Canadian? and Six British? Not that I’m complaining…

• This was the first year girls could wear jewel tones instead of black during the group numbers. Last year was the first year they could wear pants. Slay!

  • When I say “last year,” I mean 2019 - my brain can’t latch onto the fact that it’s been three years since I was last at the Jimmy’s. How can that be?? We’ve lost so much time to the pandemic. Help!

• Thrilled for the girl who got to strut forward and wail with this staging:

  

  

• This number had two of my favorite things: clapping during a song and “Astonishing” from Little Women.

• The boys singing “Chip On Your Shoulder” is an example of how the boys are……….. not as good as the girls.

• “Legally Blonde (Remix)” is the only time it’s fine to say you’re proud to be American.

• Group Number #2 was a tribute to Sondheim, just like Emily predicted seven months ago:

• The tribute was weirdly framed as “Shubert Salutes Sondheim” and only had songs from his shows put on at Shubert Theatres?

• Abolish the gender binary, but also I’m a sucker for “boy clump sings, then girl clump sings.”

  

  FB cover photo vibes

• The use of “I wish, more than anything…” = immediate fat tears

• An a cappella ending to a tribute… even more powerful/stirring than clapping during a song.

FINALISTS

• The eight finalists performed solos in this order from these musicals: In the Heights, Bridges of Madison County, Allegiance, Parade, Parade, Band Stand, Funny Girl, Parade. That’s 50% Jason Robert Brown with enough Parade songs to roughly outline the story arc.

  • Raina: “What is Parade about?” Me: “It’s about… oh actually I’m thinking of Carousel. I have no idea.” 

• I could never judge the Jimmy’s because 1) I don’t have a discerning ear and 2) I love every performance and simply can’t choose a favorite. The best I could do this year was pick a top two actor/actress. None of my girlies won (</3), but they were:

  • Dakota Lee Renteria – his head voice on “creeeeeam riiiiises” killed me

  • Sophie Pollono - phenomenal audition to replace Beanie in Funny Girl, and you know she picked her song with that intent

  • Joshua Thompson - alright I’ve changed my mind about picking favorites, Joshua should’ve won

  • Symoné Spencer – the TEARS! Go off!!! Side note: Symoné and Joshua are both from North Carolina, a state that’s been packing the finals in recent years.

• She wasn’t one of my picks, but I did love Anna Zavelson’s fit:

  

• Nothing tops the drama of the finalists RISING FROM BENEATH THE STAGE for the winner reveal.

  

  In 2019 the finalists emerged all holding hands – did they like each other less this year or was it a COVID thing?

MISC. NOTES

• Maybe this goes without saying, but the performances all sound much better live.

• The men’s bathroom at Jimmy’s intermission is a great chance to see every short sleeve button down shirt pattern on the market.

• While the judges deliberate, the audience watches a video highlighting Jimmy alum on Broadway. When Emily, Raina, and I saw that the 2017 Medley #3 Joseph is now Boq in the Wicked tour, we screamed like he’s a close friend.

• The Jimmy’s-to-Dear Evan Hansen/Mean Girls-national-tour pipeline is no joke.

• I was sure we’d get some Spring Awakening in the show this year, but no dice.

• I have a feeling this newsletter might be incomprehensible if you weren’t at the Jimmy’s and didn’t bother to watch the YouTube clips, but that’s your fault, isn’t it?