Student Blog: Here's To The Ones Who Dream: How I Became a Reporter for the Jimmy Awards

In 2023, my life was changed by a video.

Around March of my junior year of high school, my theater director approached me and asked if I would be interested in submitting a video to the Stephen Sondheim Awards. They were looking for students to submit a short video showcasing the reasons why they would be the best pick to be a Student Reporter for the Jimmy Awards. 

After carefully drafting a script for the video, I ran around my high school theater, stood in front of my collection of life size Broadway cutouts (yes, you read that right), and even interviewed my high school director in hopes of standing out to the Sondheims and the Jimmys. I didn’t think there was a world where I got selected, but the anxious excitement of the “what-if” loomed in the back of my mind.

In April of the same year, I checked Instagram while on a college tour. I nearly dropped my phone when I saw that I had been selected as one of two Student Reporters for the Sondheims. To this day, my mom and I joke that the reason I liked the campus so much was simply because I was elated from the news of the Sondheims.

It was an honor to serve as a reporter for the Sondheims. Along with my co-reporter, the lovely Kirstin Ward, I interviewed the nominees, did takeovers on Instagram showing behind the scenes rehearsal clips, and ran the red carpet livestream. We even got to present an award during the ceremony. To make the entire time even more special, Kirstin and I were lucky enough to both be selected as finalists for the Jimmy Awards Student Reporter Search.

Only a few days before the Sondheims, I was at picture day for my dance studio. As I grabbed my phone to head out, I saw a notification about a missed Facetime call from an unknown number as well as a text from my theater director to answer my phone. My heart dropped, and while I still didn’t think there was any way I “won,” I hesitantly opened my email. It was at this moment that everything changed. I had been selected as one of the two Student Reporters for the Jimmy Awards. I ran to the parking lot and called my Best Friend. I was so emotional over the phone that she initially thought I had gotten in a car accident. I proceeded to run back inside and tell my dance teacher who was one of the most influential figures in my life throughout middle school and high school. Eventually I Facetimed the unknown number back and was greeted by the smiling faces of the Black Rock Theater staff and the Sondheims nominees who congratulated me on the news. And yes, at some point way too late into the Facetime I remembered to explain to them why I was sitting in the car with a sequined mesh flapper dress on.

Despite the few people that I accidentally told in the excitement of the moment, I had to keep my Jimmys position a secret for quite some time. I’ll never forget the feeling of sitting at the Sondheims watching the closing number. The BRT staff had kindly put Kirstin and I in a box where we were perched above the stage and could look out on the entire audience. As the group on stage performed “I See Stars” from Mean Girls, I glanced at the section where my theater group was sitting. While they had all helped repost my Jimmys finalist video and supported me along the journey, at this point none of them knew that I had “won.” I even shed a few tears thinking about what was in store for the next month, and the unbelievable adventure that I was about to embark on. Watching the closing number was one of the final moments in which the Jimmys was just an exciting secret.

My experience with the Jimmy Awards changed the trajectory of my life. It opened my eyes to the world of broadcast journalism, a field I had never considered prior. Besides getting to meet all of the incredible nominees and learn their stories, I also got to interview Broadway performers (Andrew Barth Feldman, Eva Noblezada, and Corbin Bleu to name a few) and industry VIPs and even tour ABC Studios. One of the most meaningful elements of the weekend was getting to hear about each nominee’s background. Some of them had been performing their entire lives, while others started only a year ago. I got to be alongside the nominees for many of their firsts such as seeing Times Square and stepping onto a Broadway stage. Having grown up in Connecticut, my family went to New York fairly often, so getting to see the magic through an outside perspective was incredibly special.

My Jimmys co-reporter, JD Davis, and I claimed “Audition (The Fools Who Dream)” from La La Land as our anthem for the weekend. We believed that not only did it relate to our own journeys, but also to the ones of the 90+ nominees. Only months prior, we were all high schoolers who dared to dream on a national level. And by a miracle, we were the lucky ones who got to travel to one of the most iconic places on Earth to make these dreams come true. Not to mention, my childhood dream came true when I opened the Playbill during the show and saw my face; it was truly surreal. I still don’t fully know what the Jimmys saw in me, but I am so grateful that they gave me the opportunity to pursue what seemed impossible.

I only brushed the surface here of my time with the Jimmys; truly I could talk about it for hours on end. My time as a Student Reporter carried with me as I entered college, and I still consider it to be one the coolest things I’ve ever done. I owe my career passions and dreams entirely to the Sondheims and the Jimmys. If they hadn’t taken a chance on the 18-year-old from Connecticut, I don’t know where I would be today.

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Best Orchestrations - Top 3

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20.8% of votes

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3. William David Brohn - Ragtime

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