In the Wings

Those schools that have withdrawn from the Metropolitan Awards might feel compelled to rethink, given this remarkable development.

I’ve reported before that the winners of the Metros for best leading actor and actress (this year, Aaron Sauer of Sloatsburg and Michele Rubich of Briarcliff) will be headed to NYU this week for a five-day extravaganza surrounding the inaugural Jimmy Awards. They’ll learn production numbers, meet NYU professors and attend master classes from Broadway pros. And next Monday, they’ll appear at the awards ceremony—in those production numbers—alongside 30 other actress-actor tandems.

Here’s the big news, though. The winner of the inaugural Jimmy Award will be eligible for a FOUR-YEAR SCHOLARSHIP TO NYU’S TISCH SCHOOL. Rubich and Sauer are both juniors—she at Briarcliff, he at Don Bosco in Ramsey, N.J.—but can you imagine? Starting your senior year knowing that, if you meet NYU’s admissions qualifications, you have a four-year scholarship to Tisch waiting for you?

Incredible.

The Jimmy Awards, named for Broadway theater owner and producer James M. Nederlander, will be presented at the live event June 29 at the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts at NYU.

“High school musical theater is often the first point of incubation for the performers of tomorrow,” states Kent Gash, director of the Tisch School of the Arts’ Studio on Broadway: Music Theatre and Acting.  “We in musical theater here at Tisch School of the Arts are eager to celebrate the work of these talented young people and are delighted to be able to encourage arts education and the development of the nation’s best and brightest young performers through supporting The Jimmys!”

Elizabeth Bradley, chair of the Department of Drama at Tisch, adds, “The partnership between Tisch Drama and The National High School Musical Theater Awards is a significant tangible expression of our commitment to celebrating accomplishment in this discipline and to providing a concentrated, progressive and rigorous education at the Tisch School of the Arts. With the School’s creation of the New Studio on Broadway: Music Theatre and Acting, we wish to provide opportunities for gifted, passionate and curious young actors to experience our faculty and approach first hand.”

“New York University’s sponsorship of The National High School Musical Theater Awards reflects the importance and growing popularity of the amateur musical theater movement in high schools around the country,” explains Van Kaplan, co-producer of NHS Musical Theater Awards. “While the primary goal of our program is to encourage theater arts education programs, The Jimmys are also an opportunity to identify and nurture promising young talent.”
The NHS Musical Theater Awards is a national celebration of outstanding student achievement recognizing individual artistry in vocal, dance and acting performance by high school students.  The following professional regional theaters will be represented at the competition in New York: Casa Mañana, Forth Worth, TX; Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre, Atlanta, GA; FCLO Music Theatre, Fullerton, CA; Helen Hayes Youth Theatre, Nyack; Hershey Theatre, Hershey, PA; Kansas City Starlight Theatre, Kansas, MO; McCoy Rigby Entertainment, La Mirada, CA; Music Theatre of Wichita, Wichita, KS; North Carolina Theatre, Raleigh, NC; North Shore Music Theatre, Beverly, MA; Paper Mill Playhouse, Millburn, NJ; Pittsburgh CLO, Pittsburgh, PA; Rochester Broadway Theatre League, Rochester, NY; The Old Globe, San Diego, CA; The Spirit of Broadway Theater, Norwich, CT; Theatre Under the Stars, Houston, TX.

Tickets to the 2009 Jimmy Awards are available at http://www.skirballcenter.nyu.edu. Tickets can be purchased by visiting the Center’s Web site, by phone at 212-352-3101, or in person at the Skirball Center’s Shagan Box Office. New York University’s Skirball Center for the Performing Arts is located at 566 LaGuardia Place (at Washington Square South).

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