A spotlight is on Las Vegas this month as The Smith Center for the Performing Arts and its Nevada High School Musical Theater Awards (NVHSMTA)celebrated top honors at the National High School Musical Theatre Awards.
Nicknamed the Jimmy Awards, the event recognizes outstanding student achievement in the theater arts. The event is presented by the Broadway League Foundation and was hosted this year by Josh Groban.
Top Honors At Jimmy Awards First For Nevada
This year’s Jimmy Award winner for Best Performance by an Actor was Las Vegas’s Chris Hayes. NVHSMTA’s 2025 Outstanding Lead Actor and a recent graduate of Las Vegas Academy of the Arts, Hayes was one of two Nevadans to be honored at the ceremony.
The other, Elena Ferrante-Martin, was one of only two educators also honored at the ceremony. The Jimmy Awards honors educators who inspire and make a lasting impact on their school and community. Ferrante-Martin is Director of Performing Arts at Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas and also serves as Hayes’s vocal coach…