Editor's Note: This story has been updated the reflect that Jackson Manning made it to the semifinals of the Jimmy Awards in New York on Monday night.
They're the tops — and if anyone who saw her Reno Sweeney and his Jimmy Crocker in Central Bucks High School West's springtime production of "Anything Goes" knows anything, it's that these two topnotch talents might be going somewhere that no CB West student has gone before.
Recent grad Anna Shea Safran, 18, and rising senior Jackson Manning, 17, made their Broadway bows Monday night in exclusive company: They were part of the 96-member class act that is the nomination cadre of kids from high schools across the country competing for the Jimmys, the annual National High School Musical Theatre Awards presented by the Broadway League Foundation. (Anna and Jackson were gifted with the Philadelphia Independence Awards for High School Musical Theater, which led to their selection for the Jimmy nods.)
Manning made it through to the semifinal round. Ultimately two winners — Lauren Marchand, of Long Island N.Y., and Langston Lee, of Austin TX — were chosen by a panel of eminent judges after a week of rehearsals and coaching, leading to the prize performance at Broadway's Minskoff Theatre.
Named after the late iconic theatrical impresario James M. Nederlander, the Jimmys streamed on YouTube and Facebook.
Both veterans of Bucks stages, these two CB West Buckshot teens have tapped into their teeming song and dance talents under the aegis and guidance of a band of Bucks teachers and coaches.
Anna Shea gives shout-outs to Bryan Lesnick, her seminal source of musical theatre inspiration, going back to second grade; Anne Odland; and Jessica Bostock.
Jackson's praise dances to the tune of teacher Yuki Ishiguro, founder of Yu.S.Artistry, and actor Andrew Polec.
But both save the best bravos and kudos for their families: Jackson's folks, Kelly and Jim ("I would not have been anywhere without my mother and father"); Anna applauds her parents, Suzanne and Peter. "And my sister, too," she chimes in of older sis Sierra.
The dynamic sibling duo’s popular performing talents have been showcased as part of the Bucks County Playhouse's Courtyard Cabarets.
"We both love musical theater. She's the reason I started to do this. In fact, when Sierra started performing, I just copied her," chuckles Anna.
And now, being Broadway-bound... "It’s surreal, so hard to believe," says Anna of so much training and train trips that led to the biggest stage of her evolving young adulthood, which includes being a finalist for two years running in Michael Feinstein’s Songbook Academy.
"It's been a dream since I moved to Bucks County; it's hard to get my head around it," adds Jackson.
(In a way, he's making headlines: "I am the first male nominee from Bucks County," he says of the Jimmys. "I am setting a trail" for other males who want to pursue dance and musical theater, a course sometimes subject to coarse and crude remarks, he avows, by those with bent gender biases who might consider musical theater an un-masculine muse to pursue. He's heard it himself, "being asked ‘why aren't I playing football instead?’." So he lets his fine footwork on stage do the talking, derailing the deriders, while also acting on his social concerns: He was recently presented the Doylestown Youth Leadership Award.)
What also helped choreograph the two teens' musical careers? Being active with their school's Harlequin Club, which helped make a dramatic difference in their lives and choice of future careers. (Anna gives a holla to being a future Hoosier; she will attend Indiana University's much lauded and applauded musical theater program in the Fall; a year from making a college choice, Jackson would prefer studying at a school in New York, "where I can absorb all the artistry the city has to offer.")
They learned quite a bit from their bonafide Broadway experience. Indeed, both salute theater as a way of giving and getting knowledge about the ways of the world. Notes Jackson: "There's a line from 'Cabaret': 'If you’re not against all this, you’re for it — or you might as well be,’" he says of character Cliff's chiding Sally for ignoring Nazi tyranny on the rise.
Theater, adds Jackson, has its own stage presents to present, "offering the gift of meaningful messages," especially during troubling times.
As for Anna, "Rent" has its own payback for those myopic about the mind-blowing world they're in, referring to composer Jonathan Larsen's lyrical lines: “There is no future, there is no past. I live this moment as my last. There's only us. There's only this. Forget regret, or life is yours to miss. No other road. No other way. No day but today."
With or without Jimmys in their hands, both Anna and Jackson face prospects of promising tomorrows, filled with the song and dance and acclaim these Bucks "Broadway Babies" have cherished and coveted since childhood.
After all, as they've proved time and again...they're the tops.
Michael Elkin is a playwright, theater critic and novelist who lives in Abington. He writes occasional columns about theater.
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