By Madeleine Levinsohn ’19, Staff Writer

The National YoungArts Foundation, more commonly known as YoungArts, is an organization founded in 1981 by Ted Arison and his wife Lin Arison. Its purpose is to seek out the most accomplished young artists, ages 15-18, in a variety of fields to foster their passion and promote professional and educational development. YoungArts’ largest and most well known program is an application-based competition for young artists in the United States. Winners are chosen through a blind adjudication process that consists of a panel of successful artists in each respective field. YoungArts focuses on ten disciplines: cinematic arts, classical music, dance, design arts, jazz, photography, theatre, visual arts, voice, and writing. Here at NA, we have a number of students applying for this competition.  

One of our competitors is Sammi Powell, who is currently a junior. This is Sammi’s second year applying for YoungArts, and this year she will be applying in the voice discipline. She said that during the first year she applied, she didn’t realize the significance of the competition. However, after doing a little more research, she learned how much exposure and support young artists could gain from winning, which led her to apply again this year. In her first year of applying, Sammi submitted an application in multiple categories, but this year, she says she chose only to apply in one discipline because it was her strongest category. Ultimately, she applied for YoungArts because “It looks like a really great program… you get mentored by celebrities…, maybe even your idol.”  Sammi thinks that “other people should apply to YoungArts because it’s such a great opportunity to get yourself out there.”

Ezra Lebovitz, class of 2018, is another NA competitor this year who is applying in the writing discipline. He says that he “thinks it’s a really great opportunity.” Like Sammi, Ezra knows “a lot of people who have made real headway and connections in the literary world through it.” This is true not just of the literary world, but for all ten of the disciplines. Timothee Chalamet, for example, made it to National YoungArts Week in 2013 for spoken theatre. He has gone on to star in “Interstellar” and “Call Me By Your Name”, two very large-scale productions.

However, Ezra adds that “there is something to be said about this weird hypercompetitive culture that develops around it and other major teen writing competitions.” He makes a really interesting point here. Whilst opportunities like this are great for exposure and for personal development, it’s important to note the “hypercompetitive culture” he is talking about in today’s society.  Here at NA, this culture is clearly prevalent, as many may feel defined by the leadership positions they may or may not have gotten, or the games they may or may not have won. Yet on the other hand, the ambitious nature of our school has pushed more students to apply to these highly-selective competitions. Because our students are already used to an intense academic environment, it gives them an edge over competitors from other schools.

YoungArts is a wonderful experience for our community because it will allow our artists to gain exposure and competition experience. Be sure to wish our competitors luck and ask about their work!