The Straz Center education program readies local high school musical theater talents for the big time with the Broadway Star of the Future program. Winners get a chance to wow Broadway producers and directors in NYC for their shot at the title – and potentially launch their careers with a Jimmy® Award.
We all know you get to Carnegie Hall with practice, practice, practice, but the joke omits the part about breaking into the business, which may be the most confounding part of wanting to be a working performer. Between a hefty mythologizing about the la-la land of show business and the often unknown paths leading to the Great White Way if you’re distanced from the Big Apple, musical theater students often feel overwhelmed by the size of their dream.
A long-time champion of the Florida State Thespians, a chapter of Education Theatre Association which supports excellence in theater education, The Straz established the Broadway Star of the Future award, a prize to two performers during the Thespians’ week-long annual festival at The Straz. These two winners, one female and one male, get a chaperoned, all-expense-paid trip to New York City to participate in the National High School Musical Theatre Awards presented by the Broadway League Foundation and created by legendary Broadway producer and theater owner James M. Nederlander.
The Jimmys®, as they are affectionately known, is no mere red-carpet event. Oh, no. It’s a national competition, Broadway-style, which introduces aspiring musical theater performers to the demanding, week-in-the-life experience of a working actor. They have nine days to learn songs, choreography, medleys and cues for a two-hour, ticketed, live competition show at the Minksoff Theatre. They are ranked in secret by judges during rehearsal week solo performances, then the highest-ranking students are judged again during the full-cast medley sections of the Minskoff show. Scores are tallied, and four finalists are announced for a nail-biting final competition round, performing their solos once again to a packed Broadway house. One male and one female win a Jimmy, which includes a $10,000 check and guaranteed visibility with some of Broadway’s most respected vocal coaches, choreographers, directors and producers.
Realizing that the thespian pool did not reflect the talent in smaller or underserved schools, leadership at the Patel Conservatory decided to change things up a bit, separating the Broadway Star of the Future program from the Thespian Festival, which will still happen every spring at The Straz.
The exciting development this year involves our very own workshop-and-awards-show, a live, ticketed performance of the Broadway Star of the Future Awards Showcase in Ferguson Hall.
Throughout the year, two to three credentialed, professional reviewers travel to local high schools in a four-county radius that applied to have their musicals and performers judged for several award categories. These reviewers nominate Outstanding Musical as well as Outstanding Actress and Actor, and these area schools and individuals collaborate in a one-day workshop to create the awards show for Broadway Star of the Future.
Then it’s places! Curtain! . . . and by the end of the show on June 4, we will know which two high school musical theater performers will be heading to New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts for rehearsals and their shot at the 2017 Jimmy Award in the Minskoff Theatre.
“Hosting this Broadway Star of the Future program widens the net of who we can celebrate,” says Vice President of Education Suzanne Livesay. “Any school with grades 9-12 can apply for review, which is so exciting for us. We get to see the bigger picture of who is out there and give them an opportunity to get to New York if that’s where they want to be.”
Naturally, there are no guarantees, just opportunities – but the Straz Center’s 2012 Broadway Star of the Future, Joshua Grosso, won The Jimmy that year and was featured in the PBS documentary about the National High School Musical Theatre Awards, Broadway or Bust.
“We’re expecting this show to be a glitz and glamour affair,” Livesay says. “We have exceptional talent in this area, and they deserve a taste of the professional life that The Straz can give them from a live competition showcase in a fantastic theater. The winners will be prepared to go to New York, and we will have an incredible annual event to look forward to as a thriving, high school musical environment that makes real, professional inroads for our children.”
Bravo, Straz Education!
Want to see the 2017 Broadway Star of the Future Awards Showcase? You can find the performance information here.