The winners of the 2023 Jimmy Awards, celebrating high school musical theater across the country, have been announced. The top honors for Best Performance by an Actress and Best Performance by an Actor were given to Lauren A. Marchand of the Roger Rees Awards in New York and Langston Lee of the Heller Awards for Young Artists in Texas. Each was presented with a check for $25,000 to put towards their educational plans.
The 14th annual ceremony, hosted by Corbin Bleu, was held at Broadway’s Minskoff Theatre on June 26.
Throughout the night, 96 nominees from 48 regional awards programs performed. Six finalists were each awarded a $3,000 scholarship: Samia Posadas, Omar Andre Real, Corbin Drew Ross, Maya Sharma, Christian Strong and Anna Wright.
Eight semifinalists received $2,000 each. Several additional awards, such as Best Dancer and Best Performance in an Ensemble, and corresponding scholarships worth $2,000 were also given out.
The judges for this year’s ceremony included Khady Kamara, Joe Machota, Alecia Parker, T. Oliver Reid, Tara Rubin, Nick Scandalios, Thomas Schumacher, Bernie Telsey and Sergio Trujillo. This panel evaluated the students’ performances during the June 26 showcase and selected the finalists and semifinalists. A separate group of preliminary judges evaluated and cast the nominees into their performance groups for the ceremony. This year, that panel included Kristian Charbonier, Stephanie Klapper, Kevin Metzger-Timson, Dale Mott and Seth Sklar-Heyn.
During the week leading up to the awards, the students had the opportunity to work with Broadway performers and coaches. This year’s industry mentors included Jenni Barber, Max Chernin, MaryAnn Hu, Adam Kantor, Telly Leung, Howard McGillin and Desi Oakley.
The Jimmy Awards, named for the late theatrical producer James M. Nederlander, are presented by the Broadway League Foundation. They were founded in 2009 by Nederlander Alliances LLC, Pittsburgh CLO and Broadway Education Alliance.
