Surprise! Michigan high school actors, Wharton chaperone attend Tony Awards in NYC

There are perks to being a chaperone.

For Ben English, community engagement and special projects coordinator for the Wharton Center, chaperoning the two Sutton Foster Awards winners at the National High School Musical Theatre Awards (aka the Jimmy Awards) in New York landed him two big surprises and a chance to cross an item off his bucket list.

The first happened the morning of June 16, when Rachel Reiner, director of audience engagement at The Broadway League and the executive director of the Jimmy Awards, told the students and their chaperones that their scheduled “professional development” was a trip to the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center to watch the dress rehearsal of the 77^th Annual Tony Awards.

“That may have literally been the coolest thing I’ve ever done,” English posted on Facebook. “So so thankful for these opportunities!”

Yet, hours after witnessing the dress rehearsal, he made another post about the second surprise of the day.

“Sorry just kidding, this is actually the coolest thing I've ever done.”

The coolest thing? Getting to attend the actual Tony Awards ceremony.

Joining him were Michigan’s Sutton Foster Awards winners Gretchen Shope of Midland and Braeden Davis of Kalamazoo. English said going to the Tony Awards was an opportunity for the young performers to see people at the top of their craft and to witness the emphasis on arts education throughout the night.

This year was the first time the Tony weekend has coincided with the Jimmy Awards. English said their agenda on Sunday morning called for professional development.

“In all of our meetings prior, it was very much like, we’re not exactly sure how long the professional development is going to take and it’s at a location that we’re going to,” English said. “We were like, this is weirdly unspecific, but we’ll roll with it.”

Then Reiner announced the participants were going to the dress rehearsal. In a video posted on Facebook, students were jumping up and down and shouting with glee.

“We’re all freaking out,” English said. “I didn’t even know that was a thing. We’re all just ecstatic. We go and it was amazing. It was so much fun to watch.”

English said the dress rehearsal closely mirrored the evening’s show, except, of course, winners were not announced. There were still a few surprises for the live event, such as the appearance of Hillary Clinton to introduce the performance of a number from “Suffs,” a musical about the women's suffrage movement.

“You cannot post anything about the content of what you saw because we don’t want to spoil it for everyone, right?” English said. “We knew that Alicia Keys and Jay Z were going to be there, but we couldn’t say.”

The 102 Jimmy nominees and 30-some chaperones sat in the fourth ring, the highest balcony at the theater.

Once they left the rehearsal, they thought their day was mostly done outside of a few rehearsals for the Jimmy Awards and the planned Tony Awards party.

But there was more to come.

The students and chaperones were called into a rehearsal room, ostensibly for a chat with the choreographers. Reiner had another announcement.

“The way she phrased it was, ‘I promised you the best Tony Awards party ever — and you’re actually going to the Tony Awards,’” English said. “I’m a little speechless still. It was a bucket list item that I never thought I’d really get to cross off my list. It was pretty phenomenal.”

They were once again seated in the fourth ring, but this time they were in Row C and surrounded by people involved with the nominated shows.

English said he had not seen any of the nominated shows on Broadway, so the musical performances were a highlight of the show as was getting to see such actors as Jonathan Groff, Daniel Radcliffe and Lindsay Mendez performing a number from “Merrily We Roll Along.”

However, he said what really put the night over the top was the environment and the speeches that the winners gave.

“The love and the support of the theater community is unmatched in my opinion, and it’s so affirming to be in a group of people that just want to make the world better through the arts,” English said. “I love that and it was really wonderful to be able to experience it.”

The 15th annual Jimmy Awards, the reason Shope, Davis and English were in New York, will be streamed at 7:30 p.m. June 24 on YouTube and Facebook. Josh Groban is hosting the show.

This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Wharton Center chaperone Ben English surprised with Tony Award ticket