LIVE from The Jimmy Awards! Meet Your 2019 Blumey Awards Best Actress & Actor Winners
June 20, 2019 / Blog
It’s been a busy couple of months for Blumey Award Best Actress and Best Actor winners, Arella Flur and Sayo Oni. After winning top honors at the Blumeys in May, they both graduated from high school (Flur from Charlotte Latin School and Oni from Central Academy of Technology and Arts). Right now, they are in New York City preparing for the National High School Musical Theatre Awards, better known as The Jimmy Awards.
They are in the midst of a week training with top theater industry professionals, surrounded by some of the country’s most talented teens, rehearsing, seeing shows and checking out the Big Apple. The awards ceremony and finals, hosted by Broadway actor Ben Platt, will take place Monday, June 24 at 7:30pm at Broadway’s Minskoff Theatre and will be livestreamed via Facebook and YouTube. (For details, visit https://www.jimmyawards.com/live/). Blumenthal Performing Arts is also hosting a FREE Blumey Awards Watch Party that Monday night at Stage Door Theater! Doors open at 7pm!
WHAT’S IT LIKE WINNING BEST ACTRESS AND BEST ACTOR AT THE BLUMEY AWARDS?
Both Flur and Oni say it felt like an out of body experience being called up to the microphone to accept their awards. “I didn’t believe it for a second,” says Flur. “...You hear your name and you kind of forget everything.”
For Oni, who was also nominated last year in the Best Actor category and celebrated his friend’s win instead, it was a chance to relive that moment with a different outcome. “It was a great experience,” he says.
One of the highlights of their Blumey Awards adventure was developing friendships with other participants, being bowled over by their incredible talent and learning from one another. “It was nice to connect with people who share the same passions as me,” says Oni.
“We really formed these strong relationships during that week of the Blumey process,” says Flur.
GET TO KNOW THE WINNERS
ARELLA FLUR
The arts and academics have always played a huge role in Arella Flur’s life. Along with winning the Blumey Award for Best Actress, she recently was selected as a National Merit Scholar. Next year, she heads to Northwestern University, near Chicago, to study theatre and theatre management.
“I look at it that everything I do is helping me get better in the other fields,” says Flur. “If I’m in school, it’s helping me become a better performer. And when I’m performing [it] makes me be a better learner in school.” For example, learning to analyze literature in English class has helped her better analyze scripts while theatre has helped develop her communication skills. “I’ve never felt complete if I didn’t have one or the other.”
Flur says she spent many years as part of the ensemble in various productions before getting a chance to perform in lead roles. She credits hard work and wonderful teachers for helping her to get where she is today.
Seeing her hard work finally pay off has been thrilling. It’s also given her the chance to be a voice for other young people—answering their questions and encouraging them to pursue theater.
She also thinks back to one particular Teen City Stage production of A CHORUS LINE, when as a middle school student she had the chance to perform the opening number alongside many future Blumey Award Best Actress/Actor winners, including Anna Hertel (2017), Renee Rapp (2018), Ethan Holtzman (2018), and Abby Corrigan (2014).
“People I have watched getting these awards are people I grew up with and people I looked up to,” says Flur, “so being in their company is incredible now and seeing them go on to even bigger things.”
She and Oni have already checked in with some former Blumey winners during their trip to NYC —catching performances of the Tony AwardⓇ-winning Best Musical HADESTOWN, starring Eva Noblezada (Blumey Award for Best Actress in 2013), and MEAN GIRLS, now starring Rapp (who won Best Actress at last year's Jimmy Awards). They will also meet up with Mekhai Lee (Blumey Award for Best Actor in 2014), who just finished a national tour with THE COLOR PURPLE and is starting an off-Broadway production of ROCK OF AGES.
(Flur and Oni with 2013 Blumey Awards Best Actress winner and two-time Tony Awards nominee Eva Noblezada who is currently staring in Hadestown on Broadway)
(Flur and Oni with 2018 Blumey & Jimmy Awards Best Actress winner Renee Rapp, who is currently staring in Mean Girls on Broadway)
(Flur and Oni with 2014 Blumey Awards Best Actor winner Mekhai Lee currently in the production of Rock of Ages Off-Broadway)
SAYO ONI
Sayo Oni knows something about ROCK OF AGES. That’s the show that garnered him the Best Actor win at this year’s Blumey Awards. He loved having the chance to perform medleys featuring two numbers from his school's show (“Don’t Stop Believing” and “Oh Sherrie”) with the other Blumey nominees on Blumenthal’s big stage.
“I remember when I first saw it in the sheet music… [I thought] this is insane, this is crazy!”
Oni, who will attend Elon University’s top rated Music Theatre program in the fall, didn’t start performing in musicals until his freshman year. Prior to that he focused on dance, including hip hop, contemporary, tap and ballet. But at Central Academy of Technology and Arts, he found his calling.
Oni participated in the Blumey Awards all four years—he was part of the ensemble of RAGTIME, which won Best Musical at the 2016 Blumey Awards. In 2017, he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Tobias Ragg in SWEENEY TODD. Last year, he was nominated for Best Actor for the role of Chip in ON THE TOWN.
But this year’s win was like nothing else he’s ever experienced.
“Everything's been go, go, go since the Blumeys,” says Oni. From media requests and graduation to packing for New York and preparing as best he can for whatever will happen at the Jimmy Awards, it’s been a lot to juggle. He has tried to carve out time for each task and plan ahead to make sure it doesn’t get too overwhelming. Meanwhile, he's been both eager and nervous about meeting the team of professional mentors who are working with nominees during the intense training leading up to the Jimmy Awards ceremony.
“I’m excited to meet so many people that I’ve been looking up to for years,” says Oni.
ADVICE TO YOUNGER PERFORMERS
Based on their own experiences, Flur and Oni have these things to share with up and coming performers:
“I would say that hard work will eventually pay off because I have very little natural talent,” says Flur. “My parents will tell you when I was in elementary school... I couldn’t do jazz squares or sing in pitch.” If you keep going, she advises, people will eventually notice.
“Always try new things," says Oni, recalling his own late discovery of musical theatre, "because you never know what will catch your attention.”
Both of them also emphasize the importance of kindness. “Be a good person,” says Flur. “Be a person others want to be around.”
“Talent can only take you so far,” adds Oni. “Kindness and professionalism is what opens the door and gets you into the audition.”
OFF TO THE JIMMY AWARDS
If you tune into the June 24 Jimmy Awards ceremony, you’ll see a lot of familiar faces. In addition to Flur and Oni, you’ll have the chance to catch Charlotte teacher Matthew Hinson (Northwest School of the Arts) accept the 2019 Inspiring Teacher Award, and see last year’s Best Actress winner, Rapp.
So, how does it feel to be heading to the Jimmy Awards?
“It’s an opportunity of a life-time,” says Flur. “I’m honored to be able to go up.”
“I’m super grateful to the Blumenthal for this incredible opportunity,” says Oni. “Because going to New York and getting to make my Broadway debut is insane. I never saw this year going this way. I’m just super grateful for everything.”
(Yep. That's Sayo and Arella on a BILLBOARD in Times Square!)