Last night’s inaugural National High School Musical Theater Awards ceremony at NYU’s Skirball Center was a celebration of high-school musicals and of the patriarch of the Nederlander group, James M. Nederlander, a lifelong theatrical impresario who is still going at it after nearly 70 years in the business.

First, the news. The winners of the first-ever Jimmy Awards were Steven Mark of Ridgefield High School in Ridgefield, Conn., and Jenny Wine of Wichita High School East in Wichita, Kansas. (Photo credit: Bruce Glikas)

They are eligible for a four-year scholarship to NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts (if they meet the school’s entrance requirements). Each also received $10,000 to further their education.

When he stepped to the podium, Mark said he was honored, adding “Everyone knows that high-school musical theater is the best time you can have, ever. I mean … seriously.”

Brewster Theater Company reached out with news about their summer production of “Bye, Bye, Birdie.”

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Got a sneak peek this morning at the opening and closing numbers for tonight’s inaugural National High School Musical Theater Awards at NYU: 32 kids absolutely GOING FOR IT.

For those of you accustomed to the Metropolitan Awards (ever The Helens), this is a different sort of awards show. It’s modeled after the Gene Kelly Awards, given out each year by the Pittsburgh CLO, one of the driving forces behind the NHSMTAs (or Jimmys).

At Stepinac, graduation doesn’t end theater. The Stepinac Alumni Theatre presents “Grease!” at Archbishop Stepinac High School, Major Bowes Theater, 950 Mamaroneck Ave., White Plains, July 15-18 at 7:30 p.m. and July 19 at 5 p.m. $15 for adults and students, $10 seniors and children under 12. Tickets are available in advance and at the door before each performance. 914-946-4800 ext. 385.

Here’s a dispatch from Michelle Rubich at the National High School Musical Theater Awards:

Well, yesterday started off great! We blocked the finale of the the show, and the “medley” group that I’m in. It’s really cute, and the choreographer claims, “you definitely have the best medley”. After blocking for three hours, we worked on our solos we will be performing for the judges.

We worked with different teachers on our solos and I got to see how different approaches can produce different results.

Neil Haskell from ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ came to talk and take pictures with us! Woo! Most of the students were soo excited to see him. Having seen him three times in “Altar Boyz” and twice in “9 to 5,” I wasn’t that flustered by him; But he’s still really cool! I got back to my room around 10:30, and crashed by 11:30… what a day! =)

Michelle Rubich of Briarcliff, reporting from Day 2 of the National High School Musical Theater Awards:

The morning started off rough, considering we were staging our opening at 9 a.m., but we finished it in in two hours, and it looks incredible!

Here’s Aaron Sauer’s post from Day 2 at the National High School Musical Theater Awards, sent after breakfast this morning:

So, as I had hoped, breakfast was delicious.

It would be easy to dismiss “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change” — now in an excellent production at Westchester Broadway Theatre in Elmsford — as a sweet little confection.

After all, it has been called “Seinfeld set to music,” and wasn’t “Seinfeld” a show about nothing?

But this charming revue is about something big, modern life, which often disguises itself as a lot of little things: first dates, first kisses, wedding vows, raising kids and growing old together.

Michelle Rubich of Briarcliff and Aaron Sauer of Sloatsburg woke up at NYU this morning, ready for Day 2 of the National High School Musical Theater Awards.

Sure, they’re vain and stubborn.

Of course, they fight and bicker and call each other names.

But Beatrice and Benedick — the warring lovers in “Much Ado About Nothing,” opening tomorrow night at Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival in Garrison — have a deeper, more complex relationship than do Hero and Claudio, the story’s more amiable pair.

It might sound trite, but when you interview someone—at least when I do—you sort of become a part of their circle. They let you into their lives, however briefly, and you join them in their orbit.

Even though comedian Pat Hazell grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, he’s pretty sure his childhood was like any other late Baby Boomer’s, full of Slinkys, Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots and even horrifically dangerous toys like lawn darts and Clackers.

He’s sure because, for about a dozen years, he’s been writing, performing and refining “The Wonder Bread Years,” a slice-of-life comedy that opens at Penguin Rep in Stony Point tonight. And he has seen the knowing glances from audiences and heard their reminiscences.

Michael V. Ficocelli, a Rockland composer and a co-founder of Little Fig Stage Company, will have his song, “My Mamalah,” sung at a memorial service at Auschwitz/Birkenau Poland on July 2.

Banjo virtuoso Béla Fleck brings his Africa Project to Katonah on July 3 for Caramoor’s 64th International Music Festival. Appearing alongside Malian singer Oumou Sangaré, Fleck will present the music he researched in travels through Uganda, Tanzania, Senegal, Mali, Gambia, South Africa and Madagascar, journeys that are chronicled in “Throw Down Your Heart” — the title of his latest CD and of an accompanying documentary. Fleck answered some questions via email.

The Africa Project began with you wanting to find out where your instrument came from. Will some of those banjo forebears be at Caramoor on July 3? The akonting? The kora?
At Caramoor I will be joined by the incomparable Oumou Sangaré and her amazing band. Her musicans do not include the banjo forebears, but they are great nontheless… Oumou comes from Mali and is one of my all time favorite musicians. We will perform separately and together.

Beth Leavel, Tony winner for “The Drowsy Chaperone,” will join Hudson Stage’s Divas ‘09 fund-raiser July 11 in Yorktown Heights.

Leavel, who has a wicked sense of humor and a great voice, will join Liz Callaway and a list of yet-unannounced divas. Hudson Stage, started 10 years ago by Olivia Sklar, Denise Bessette and (Callaway’s husband) Dan Foster, is an exceptional local theater company.

Each summer—and always the weekend I am on vacation—they hold a wingding of a shindig featuring Broadway songbirds.