There’s More than Meets the Eye at the Blumey Awards

Hollywood’s got the Oscars. New York’s got the Tony’s. And here in Charlotte, we’ve got the Blumey Awards, presented by Wells Fargo. The black tie affair featuring live performances and celebrating the achievements of local high school students in musical theater takes place Sunday, May 20.

(First day of Blumey Awards rehearsals at Booth Playhouse)

This year, students from 46 high schools around the region are participating. And while many people know about the thrilling onstage performances and competition that take place annually in front of a sold out house, that’s only part of the story. Some of the most innovative aspects of the program take place behind-the-scenes—providing unique opportunities for students who are pursuing other kinds of dreams tied to the performing arts. Here’s a closer look at a few of them.

NEWSIES

“I live and breathe theater,” says Joshua Watson, a senior at Central Cabarrus High School in Concord. “It’s something that I really got into when I came to high school.”

But this year’s Blumey Awards have given him a different perspective on the art form than his usual roles as a performer, director or crew member for school shows.

Instead, Watson turned his focus to writing about theater this spring: he’s one of 14 students competing for The Charlotte Observer Student Critic Award. Before diving in, he and the other nominees met with longtime Observer arts and entertainment writer Lawrence Toppman to learn about the nuances of writing reviews.

“All of the sudden, you feel like your words have power to create the narrative to influence what people might see and might think of shows,” says Watson.

Over the course of several months, the student critics attended and wrote reviews of three different high school productions. Toppman read each of the reviews and will select the top student critic, to be announced during the Blumey Awards ceremony.

“I want to teach theater at the high school level,” says Watson, who will study Theater Education at Appalachian State University next year. “That was kind of why I did this.” He especially enjoyed the opportunity to compare productions from a variety of schools with a range of financial resources and available talent.

Despite the differences he observed in production values, he believes theater’s capacity to build empathy and community is universal. “The performing arts have so much potential for bringing people together and creating a dialogue for issues that need to be discussed,” says Watson. “The critic brings these pieces to the public … And elevates the one that needs to be heard.”

(2017 Blumey Awards' "Charlotte Observer Student Critic Award” winner Cecilia Whalen of East Mecklenburg High School)

THE SOUND OF MUSIC

What you actually hear the night of the Blumey Awards ceremony is a work of art in itself—from the massive opening and closing numbers featuring students from every school to the original medleys sung by the Best Actor and Best Actress nominees, and the professional large-scale pit orchestra accompanying each school vying for Best Musical. All of these programming decisions fall to New York-based composer and arranger David Dabbon, who has music directed the Blumey Awards every year since it began. Dabbon’s day job is arranging music for Broadway shows, composing new works for productions around the country, and orchestrating music performed at premiere concert halls like Carnegie Hall.

(Blumey Awards Music Director David Dabbon teaching performers the show's highly anticipated Opening Number)

Payton Altman, a passionate student musician from Northwestern High School in Rock Hill, can’t wait to serve as Dabbon’s assistant for the second year in a row. Last year, he helped the conductor prepare and transcribe the music scores for the Blumey Awards Orchestra, a group of about 15 professional musicians and two outstanding students from local high schools.

Observing Dabbon work was thrilling for Altman, who plays six instruments and is active in multiple music ensembles at his school. “It was really incredible,” says Altman, recalling the speed at which Dabbon arranged medleys for each of the Best Actor and Best Actress nominees. “He did that last year in the span of just a few days.”

Chatting with Dabbon over lunches, learning more about his work and getting tips for success were highlights of the two-week experience. Altman also had the chance to try orchestrating a short piece of segue music that could be used throughout the ceremony to transition into acceptance speeches.

“The day before the show, [Dabbon] got the band to play what I had written… and he said he wanted to use it for the show, which was really awesome,” says Altman. “Not that many people can say they’ve had their music played by Charlotte’s finest musicians.”

For Altman, the Blumey Awards experience has been life-changing. It helped him move from a vague desire to work in the music industry to identifying a specific career path he wants to pursue. “I’m a jazz musician,” he now says with confidence. “I compose, arrange and orchestrate and that’s what I’m going to do with the rest of my life.”

But in the short term, he’s simply excited to work with Dabbon again and, for the first time, see his own school’s production of BIG RIVER considered as a Best Musical nominee.

MONEY MAKES THE WORLD GO ROUND

Bragging rights for winning schools are not the only thing on the line at the Blumey Awards. $25,000 in scholarships is also awarded that evening, supporting students pursuing careers tied to the performing arts. These include two $10,000 renewable Mary Doctor Performing Arts Scholarships to help cover undergraduate educational costs and the Gordon Hay Scholarship—a  one-time $5,000 grant to support special learning opportunities for a recipient pursuing a non-performance based career in the performing arts.

But the most amazing facet of the Blumey Awards  continues long after the curtain comes down on the year’s competition: when planted seeds of inspiration blossom in ways yet to be seen.