More than three dozen young performers are gathered in a semi-circle around Jason Burrow and a piano. They're going through a first rehearsal for a Saturday night performance at Walton Arts Center as part of the second edition of the Arts Center's Diamond Awards.
The Diamond Awards include students of musical theatre from 12 participating high schools, as far east as Harrison and as far south as Clarksville. Judges went to each school's musical production this year and selected top performers to be included in the Diamond Awards weekend, which culminates with each of the students in performance Saturday night. Two of the performers — one male, one female — will be selected as top performers to advance to the Jimmy Awards in New York City this summer. That's the national climax to a series of regional competitions like the Diamond Awards.
As yesterday's first rehearsal continued, Sara Jones, program and festivals manager at Walton Arts Center, sat down to talk about the Diamond Awards, the invited students and the process of two and a half days of intensive rehearsals.
Sara Jones: They are held to a high caliber of standard. The product — the show — we want it to be just as entertaining for the audience as it is fun for the performers on stage.
Kellams: This is the second year for the Diamond Awards and Walton Arts Center to have this relationship. Anything different in year two than year one?
Jones: Absolutely. We've added a few different awards. We wanted to make sure we recognize specific talents that we see on stage, like outstanding vocal performance, acting and dance. We also added a student reporter award. That is the only other award besides the best actor and best actress that actually goes up to the national level. We've got two great selections from Harrison and Bentonville West High School. They're here all weekend and covering and taking over our Instagram. We've also got one last award called the Spirit of the Diamond that we have added. That is an award selected by the students themselves. They're going to be experiencing each other for two and a half, almost three days. On Saturday morning they'll vote for who encompasses the spirit of the diamonds. This is a person who is positive, who is friendly, who works hard, and they feel like can be anyone's friend. Maybe it's whoever they feel like is the cream of the crop, but someone who's humble.
Kellams: There will be some artists who move on to the Jimmy Awards in New York.
Jones: That's right. The winners for best lead actress and best lead actor — we will take to New York, all expenses paid. Fly them to New York with a staff member who will act as a chaperone. They will get to stay at the Juilliard campus and go through about 13 days of intense rehearsals and learning opportunities. Then, like the Diamond Awards, the national program — also called the Jimmy Awards — will present a performance and award show at the end. They'll be performing on the Minskoff stage, which is currently where The Lion King is performing, so they'll make their Broadway debut.
Kellams: Are there examples of Jimmy Award winners who have gone on to a national tour?
Jones: Absolutely. The 2025 National High School Musical Theater Awards — the Jimmy Awards — winner for best lead actress, her name is Fabiola Caraballo Quijada, and she won in 2025. Then within months was invited to be on tour with & Juliette, and we will see her perform at Walton Arts Center next week.
Kellams: She graduated from high school in Tyler, Texas, goes to the Jimmys, then is cast in the national touring production of & Juliette — and this is happening within months.
Jones: Something special about Fabiola is she was sent to the Jimmys, the national program, three years in a row. By the third year, when all these kids are sent up to New York for the Jimmys, their rehearsal processes — their auditions — are in front of actual major Broadway casting directors. So this is a huge career path opportunity. And the proof is in the pudding with Fabiola.
Kellams: You've been a performer. Tell me about this rehearsal that's going on, because I'm not a performer and they're going over the same note and the same micro measure to come in. Did that bring back memories for you?
Jones: Yeah. We want to treat these students as adults and show them what to expect when they walk into a professional rehearsal. When they came in this morning, I gave them their rehearsal binder with all their music printed and their name on the front. They are in rehearsal right now with Jason Burrow, our music director, and he will run the same passage several times to get the sound that he's looking for. It's very specific. These kids from all over Northwest Arkansas have various levels of experience and various levels — they've all got different teachers who are saying different things, so they're coming in with different knowledge. Jason's really funneling down the sound that he wants, the vowel shape — all of those little things make for a pleasing sound to the ear, because everyone's mouth has to be shaped the same to make an in-tune note with 30 people in the room.
Kellams: What is it like as either a performer or someone on the other side, to watch something come together — when you first gather and you're not even doing the choreography or the marking yet, and then by performance night, it works?
Jones: I've been working on this year's Diamond Awards since last July, August. There's so many details and so much planning that goes into this weekend, that culminates into an awards show. The high schools put on a full-length musical production. Then they, at the end of it, get scores and get invited here to then do a whole other production. To see it all come together is — I am so proud. I'm proud of the program. I'm proud of Walton Arts Center, and I'm certainly proud of all of these talented students.
Kellams: This can be competitive, right? You're hoping to win an award. But I get the sense that you also want it to be cooperative and healthy for the young people involved.
Jones: Absolutely. One of the biggest things is to create a community. There are some things that I do to try to remove some of the competition aspects. All the scoring is done once they reach the Walton Arts Center for these rehearsal processes, so the students can relax and enjoy performing without having to worry about being performative for judges on stage. This weekend should be fun for them.
Sara Jones is program and festivals manager at Walton Arts Center. When our conversation ended, there was a break in rehearsals and three actors representing Fort Smith Southside offered their thoughts about this sort of experience. We hear the voices of Connor Glasscock, Bryson Ghosh and Jay Mills.
“It's hard to find so many theater kids who are so passionate, equally as passionate as you are, that all want the exact same thing as you. And that's to put on such an amazing performance for other people.”
“You're surrounded by people who all love the same thing as much as you do.”
“You're also surrounded by people who work just as hard as you would, because we have to do it in such a short amount of time that you can't just push it on the back burner because you have three months to learn it. You've got two days, really.”
“Music is not an easy thing to just learn in five minutes. It takes a while.”
“To me, I always think about it like — I would say it's just something you have to do. It's hard to fully explain what it feels like to do until you've done it multiple times and get the feeling of it. Like for someone who's just starting out, it probably makes no sense. Like, that sounds the same thing — that was different, what do you mean? But I think, at least for me, as it's gone on, things like keeping tempo and finding out if it's on one or if it's a little early — it feels like breathing. I don't do breathing. It just happens.”
“It's almost like learning a second language, because everyone can sing — but do they? They don't. It takes time. It could come to people just like that, but usually it doesn't. They practice, they learn, and now they can speak English and they can sing English.”
“I always say that it's only intimidating if you try to make it intimidating. And these people all have really good spirits, and we're all really good friends and we want to get to know each other. It could feel competitive, but I think we try to not make it competitive and just make the most out of it.”
“Harking back to what I said earlier about how it's a lot of people who are equally as passionate — it can be one of those things where you might feel intimidated just because you may not be doing as good as you think you could be. Maybe you sing a wrong note. Oh no — did all these people — are they really good, did they hear me? But at the end of the day, all of us are going to make those mistakes. None of us are perfect, even though we may all be as driven as each other. None of us are superior to the other. We're all just as human.”
Bryson Ghosh, Jay Mills and Connor Glasscock from Fort Smith Southside, discussing their participation in the second year of the 2026 Diamond Awards at Walton Arts Center. The awards ceremony, with accompanying performances, is at the venue tomorrow evening beginning at 5 p.m.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
