Dozens of U.S. high school students made their Broadway debuts on Monday night, with five ultimately winning college scholarship funds, in the second annual Jimmy Awards.

Presented for the first time in 2009, the National High School Musical Theater Awards — nicknamed the Jimmys after co-sponsor and Broadway theatre mogul James Nederlander — celebrate theatrical excellence by secondary school performers.

Kyle Selig of Long Beach, Calif., earned the best actor prize at New York's Marquis Theatre Monday night after performing as Don Lockwood, the role made famous by Gene Kelly, in a selection from Singing in the Rain.

Atlanta's Alexandria Payne was named best actress after performing as the orphaned peasant girl Ti Moune from Once on this Island.

Each received $10,000 US as four-year scholarship assistance to attend New York University's Tisch School of the Arts Department of Drama.

Three other high schoolers received $2,500 US scholarships for their performances.

In total, 44 students travelled to New York for the awards gala and a sort of musical theatre boot camp. The students rehearsed for their own performances and as back-up singers and dancers for other finalists, underwent interviews, coaching and master classes, took in the Tony-winning musical Memphis and met with casts of Broadway shows.

"We're trying to give these kids an authentic, meaningful, professional experience," said Van Kaplan, president of the awards organization and the show's director.

"If they decide they want to pursue this as a career, they will have had kind of a taste of it."

The Jimmys are based on similar regional honours, such as Pittsburgh's Gene Kelly Awards for Excellence in High School Musical Theatre, awarded since 1991.

With files from The Associated Press