Steps for Teachers

The Jimmy Awards will be happening this year, all online. We definitely want to send New Mexico's best students to be a part of it all. Here’s how you can participate with the Enchantment Awards and help us send two students to the National High School Musical Theatre Awards.

1. Choose your show. Whether full-length version, concert version, or one of several different junior versions, make sure the title is on the official Jimmy Awards list of approved shows. That means a Disney, Jr. version of Beauty and the Beast will be acceptable while a Disney, Jr. version of Aladdin will not.
2. Note the eligible roles on the list. Those are the roles eligible for Best Actor and Best Actress Awards. The nomination follows the preferred gender of the performer, so if your Jester in Once Upon a Mattress is played by a female, your nominee will be eligible for our Best Actress Award. All nominees will be expected to sing a solo for his or her character from the show when they audition for our program. If you are producing a junior version, make sure your nominee for Best Actor or Best Actress has a solo to sing in that version. If you are submitting a paper production, make sure each of your nominees prepare solos from the show appropriate to their character.
3. Enroll your school in our program. Participation fee this year is $95, down from $150. This year’s fee covers any number of productions and casts that qualify from your school. You can pay with a credit card at the time you enroll, or pay later.
4. Nominate your eligible students once you have cast your show. We will send you a nomination form once you enroll. Your students will then audition directly for our program in the spring of 2021. (Dates to be named.) Your nominees must be available to work with us in late April/early May and to work with the Jimmy Awards, if they win here, from about June 20 to July 1, 2021.
5. Once we have your list of nominated students, you will receive a link to an online student registration form. Forward that link to all nominated students. Each student must register with the program directly. We will communicate with students about auditions this year and copy you as we do. We may recruit your assistance if we are having trouble reaching any of your students.
6. After auditions have been held and the 10 Best Actor and 10 Best Actress nominees have been named, we will ask you to submit two names for our Directors Choice Chorus. Nominate your best students, preferably one male and one female. We ask that you make sure they can participate fully in the rehearsals and performance. (Please do not nominate them if they can’t.) We will send a schedule outlining their commitment at the time we ask for your submissions. Each of these students will also have to complete a student registration.
7. ​Watch the Enchantment Awards show. (Date yet to be chosen.)

Forms You'll Need:
School Enrollment Form
Student Nomination Form (link not yet available)
Directors Choice Chorus Nomination Form (link not yet available)

Information for Students

COVID-19 has changed everything for you and we are sorry if it has limited your ability to perform in live theater. In the meantime, we are dedicated to working with you to advance your skills so that when live performances are viable again, you will be able to step onto the stage with greater confidence in your artistry.
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The pandemic has changed everything for us, too. Instead of our usual process of adjudicating you and your fellow students in productions in your high schools, we have shifted to an online audition model this year. You can enter the program as a Best Actor/Best Actress nominee in one of two ways:

• If your school is producing a musical in some way (a full production live, an online production, a concert version of the show), you can be nominated by your teacher for playing a leading role.
• If your school is not able to produce a musical in the manner listed above, you could also be nominated by your teacher for participating in a paper production, which is essentially a project where one or more students explore a specific show, get “cast” in specific roles, and study and practice those roles (or specific songs from those roles). The role has to be one of many approved by the Jimmy Awards and included on their list of approved shows.

Our awards show will be online this year. Here’s the process for being a part of the 2021 Enchantment Awards:

Best Actor/Actress Nominees

1. Your teacher will nominate you to our program. Once we have your nomination, we will send your teacher a registration form. Complete that form (with parental consent) and submit it directly to us.
2.  Prepare a solo representing the character and show your teacher nominated you from.
3. Sign up for an audition date and time slot. (We will send a link to an online sign up sheet to you later in the school year.)
4. We will choose 10 males and 10 females as finalists for our program and announce those nominees.
5. Each nominee will sing in the opening medley, a medley of songs representing each of your characters, a number to close the show, and a two-minute solo that is not from the show you were nominated from. We will send music to nominees for the two medleys, and the closing number. Each nominee should prepare two solo pieces not from their show. We will work with you to select the one you will sing during the show.
6. All rehearsals and workshop sessions will be held online. Dates and times for rehearsals/workshops will be finalized later, but we expect generally to work somewhere between April 28 and May 10. It is unlikely that we will rehearse for all of those dates and they are completely subject to change.
7. We want to stage as much of the show live as we can, but we do expect there will be recorded portions. We will work with you on internet access and other technical aspects to level the playing field for all our nominees as much as we can. That may include hosting some students in Albuquerque for some parts of the process or requiring a visit to a remote site somewhere else in New Mexico to record your portions of any pre-recorded elements. All precautions for COVID-19 will be taken to keep you and anyone accompanying you safe.

Form You'll Need:
Student Enrollment Form (the form will be forwarded to you by your teacher)

Best Featured Actor/Actress Nominees

1. Our Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress Awards have been changed this year to Best Featured Actor and Best Featured Actress.
2. Those two award winners will be chosen from our Directors Choice Chorus performers. Teachers nominate two students to the Directors Choice Chorus. We will adjudicate performers as they work with us in the Directors Choice Chorus. The male and female with the best scores will win those awards.
3. There is no audition required to join the Directors Choice Chorus, though you may be nominated to the chorus if you are not chosen as one of our twenty finalists for Best Actor or Best Actress Awards.
4. All rehearsals and workshop sessions will be held online. Dates and times for rehearsals/workshops will be finalized later, but we expect generally to work somewhere between April 28 and May 10. It is unlikely that we will rehearse for all of those dates and Directors Choice Chorus rehearsals will probably be in the second half of that time frame. Our dates are completely subject to change.
5. We expect the Directors Choice Chorus segment to be recorded. We will work with you as much as we can on any internet access and other technical aspects to help you look your best.

Form You'll Need:
Student Enrollment Form (the form will be forwarded to you by your teacher)

Best Actor/Actress Auditions

1. We will be looking for storytelling skills above all. Musical theater is about telling a story. The songs, the scenes, and the dances all contribute to the story being told. Each song in a musical has a beginning, middle and end, so it is a little story unto itself. We certainly want to hear how well you sing the song and how well you act and move with it, but we want to see emotions that are motivated and move from one moment to the next. We want to see honest emotions in your audition that help the song build and show us what the character is doing and why in each moment.
2. You will need to sing a song that your character sings in the musical you performed in your school, or would have performed if you are being nominated from a paper production (essentially, a project that did not result in any kind of actual production).
3. You will be responsible for finding the sheet music for the song, making any necessary cuts to it, and getting recorded accompaniment. There are many online resources for that. Your song should be between 2 and 3 minutes long.
4. Auditions will be held live online. We’ll send out a sign up sheet. You’ll pick your audition slot and come to the Zoom Room (or whatever platform) at that time. You’ll sing for our adjudicators who will score you and write up short evaluations for you.
5. We will likely hold auditions in March. We will share more specific information as we have it.