Jamias Hughes, an actor from the Class of 2024 at Lockhart High School, earned a spot at the prestigious National High School Musical Theatre Awards in New York City last summer. This honor – equivalent to the Tony Awards for U.S. teenagers, also called the Jimmy Awards – resulted from his stand-out role as SpongeBob in a musical production. The Examiner’s staff photographer Ursula Rogers, who has shot Hughes’ regional performances for a few years, discussed with Hughes growing up in a small town, the hard work acting requires, and why he chose to attend Texas State University in San Marcos, TX. Edited for brevity.

Ursula: You’ve barely scratched the surface of your career. So, tell me a little bit about growing up in Small Town, Texas, and how you got into acting.

Jamias: Growing up in a small town, everybody sort of knows each other and you see the same faces every day. In terms of how I got into acting, my older brother, Jason Hughes, was the first to scratch the surface. He was one of those people where he just landed in the class and he just took it more seriously than others. I saw him perform in “The Addams Family” musical at Lockhart High School. 

Ursula: Yes, playing Uncle Fester. He was so good. 

Jamias: So good. It was great seeing someone I know and love do that. It kind of broke my world a little bit. So ever since that I really wanted to do what my brother did.

Ursula: So, you had some inspiration from the family. How do you feel your upbringing in a small town, and having that supportive system, has helped you with acting specifically? Like you said: it’s a smaller town. It tends to lean toward more sports than the arts. 

Jamias: My family and my theater directors taught me not to go about things halfway. It’s easy to think there’s no stakes. We can coast, we can do whatever. It was them who said that because it’s sports-dominated, because it’s a small town, that you have to actually try and put your all into it. You have to create the stakes. And I think that’s really what created that drive. Like we didn’t have competition. We all knew each other. It was just us.

Ursula: Awesome. So when was the first time that you performed on a stage in front of a crowd?

Jamias: I was in seventh grade, Lockhart Junior High. It was the Brothers Grimm Spectaculathon. I got to be part of the all-starcast and we performed at the high school theatre. That was my first-ever performance.

Ursula: How did it feel being on stage in front of those people actually doing what you worked so hard on and see it come to fruition?

Jamias: How do you explain it? It’s a thrill. The same way adrenaline chasers do what they do. They chase that feeling. It’s sort of that for me. Also a little bit of losing yourself in the character and immersing yourself in the world. That’s very powerful to me. Sometimes the world ain’t a fun place to be, so it’s fun to have something to rely on that will always make you happy or give you a proper escape whatever you’re going through.

Ursula: You won a Heller Award. So, tell me about going to New York, as well as the character you portrayed, SpongeBob.

Jamias: I was part of the Heller Awards, a.k.a. the Heller Awards for Young Artists, where you perform, and your performance is adjudicated by judges. They score you and give you a rating. For this we actually performed a medley together. Which is unusual. From Sunday through Saturday, we were at the Long Center [in Austin] where it rehearsed for 12 hours, every day. Oh yes, ma’am.

It was pretty extensive. It was really fun though. I made some lifelong partners. It was a big bonding experience. To my surprise, I ended up winning the award. And going to participate in the Jimmy Awards for my role as SpongeBob. How do you encapsulate what you feel to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience being on Broadway and meeting so many people?

And the people that you like, that you think are so far from you. So high above and then just meeting them face to face. It truly alters the brain. Becoming great friends with Vincent Jamal Hooper, who played Simba. Now it’s just weird navigating the industry at such a young age because it’s like that’s the end goal but I’m here already…it was surreal. 

    As for how I got there, that would be SpongeBob. SpongeBob Squarepants. SpongeBob is a dramatic role. In the musical, he has more songs that are sad than he does happy. SpongeBob is a very complex person. And I do not want to sound pretentious, but this SpongeBob character, there’s so many layers, truly. SpongeBob is someone who is trying to navigate the world through a lens of his own. And there are so many people that either disagree or judge him based on the way he chooses to see the world. And, despite the doubt of not only the people around him, but himself, he still manages to overcome that and save Bikini Bottom from the volcano.

Something about a character, we all know and love, doubting himself, experiencing hardship. And then, being able to overcome that. It’s something that we all wish. SpongeBob is actually a pretty layered person. No, I’m glad that I’ve had that role.

Ursula: Have you noticed how quite a few comedic roles do well when they go into the dramatic? And it’s not always necessarily the same the other way. I feel like there’s something about having some sort of empathy toward people to be able to make them laugh that allows you to tap into all those other emotions and reach a certain level of vulnerability.

Jamias: There’s a part of the brain where you laugh that is the exact same part of the brain where you cry.

Ursula: It’s like the two sides of the theater masks: comedy and tragedy. They’re linked more than people realize. So I’m curious with the character SpongeBob. Has there ever been a time you felt like you were being judged, but you still had to persevere? People think you might be a lot more simple than you are. When you are, in fact, quite a complex human being.  How do you navigate through that space?

Jamias: In a great ode SpongeBob I kind of see the world through a comedic lens. But I guess when some people see it as an overabundance and take you less seriously they think you’re incapable of being serious. It happens in the theater world as well. If you play comedy good enough, they think, like, you’re incapable of playing a dramatic role. And these are things that I have faced. In my career how I navigated that is with the saying “words are one thing but it’s action that does the talking.” I try to excel at what I do. 

Much like that song from Ragtime “Make Them Hear You,” I make them see that I am more than what you think I am. I’ve changed a lot of minds that way. And so I think leaning on what you’re capable of and showing people. Okay there’s something they can bring to the table. It kind of eliminates any sort of like – that roughness that you might encounter. 

Ursula: I’m kind of curious if people have misconceptions about you coming from a rural area? 

Jamias: I will be honest with you. During the Heller Awards, I suffered from a really bad imposter syndrome because not only was that our first time there. Everybody else has – because the Heller Awards, formally known as The Greater Austin High School Musical Theater Awards – has been the thing since 2014 and a lot of the schools that were participating there have been participating there, and that was our first year. So, a lot of people knew each other. And I sort of felt – not alienated, I wasn’t pushed away – I felt isolated. No one’s fault at all, and it truly could have all been in my head. Just it was a bit of a struggle.

But, as I said, those lifelong partners like my great friends, Aiden Cox. He was nominated for the role of Buddy the Elf. He really helped me see things in a different way. And then I came and found out that we were all family. A lot of ailments can be self-imposed and then that can bleed into the relationship you have with people and then it becomes real, when truly it wasn’t before. It just became it whenever you manifested it. At least, that’s what I felt could have happened. If I didn’t have good people like Aiden Cox or if I didn’t have the people like Noella Chipman, who was nominated for the role of Seymour from Little Shop of Horrors? 

Ursula: That’s classic. I think you make a great Seymour.

(Ursula and Jamias sing a little line from Little Shop of Horrors)

Jamias: I thank you. I would love that. 

Ursula: You got it. I see the vision; claim it. Those are some great thought-provoking answers. So, tell me a little bit of information about the Impact Arts Austin.

Jamias: Impact Arts is a non-profit co-founded by Ginger Morris. Love her so much, she’s everything. Impact Arts,which is funded by TPA – the Texas Performing Arts in Austin – also funded my trip to go to New York. Summer Stock isn’t just in Austin, it’s around the nation. In Austin is this extensive musical theater. For Summer Stock this year, we performed “The Little Mermaid” and “Guys and Dolls.” We would rehearse at least 10 hours a day for 6 days a week.This all happens within three and a half weeks. For the entire month of July and then you start performing. There’s some days where you have two shows that day; it’s really extensive.

Ursula:  And so you were a cast member in both productions?. 

Jamias: Yes, I was Sebastian in “The Little Mermaid” and Benny Southstreet in “Guys and Dolls.”

Ursula: When did you start performing with the Impact Arts Summer show?

Jamias: I started going in my freshman year of college. Funnily enough, it was Aiden Cox who knew and introduced me to the program. He currently attends the Boston Conservatory of Music.

Ursula: I feel like that’s one of the things I’ve noticed about people that are in theater is they are so supportive and so collaborative and just work so well together. You kind of have to be able to trust people and you learn who to trust and you have to also be trustworthy and vulnerable as well. I’m curious: so what was it about San Marcos and Texas State that made you want to go there?

Jamias: At first, it was a matter of an experience because truly, I didn’t really begin acting until my sophomore year of high school. So, I didn’t know the world that I was really in, and after I went to school, I guess I didn’t know – what were the good schools for acting? I didn’t even know if I wanted to go to school for acting. I was going to be a computer science major, which I’m so glad I didn’t do that. My directors, Mr. Jason and Kenedi Worthington, she kept telling me to go to Texas State. Also my grandmother Connie Hughes, was like, “Jamias, go to Texas State.” She worked there. She was a custodian there for over 20 years. Okay, I auditioned there. I had some conversations before the audition there. It changed my mind. People were speaking of it with such importance that I was like, maybe I should go. Looking back, I didn’t want to impose preconceived notions on the school, and being from Lockhart I know people do that. So I checked myself. Some conversations I had really convinced me. Go to an audition. I was thinking, “I might not even get this, upwards of 1,000 people auditioned.”

In fact, while I was in New York I know some people there auditioned that were waitlisted. And there’s a $75 application fee and it was 11:51 p.m. and I was in the house of my directors. And we realized the application fee was due that night. So it’s due at 11:59, and it’s eight minutes till 11:59 and I wasn’t able to get a hold of my mom – and my directors were there for me. So they end up paying for my application and we ended up submitting it at 11:54 p.m., I believe. A few minutes changed the course of my life. It was great getting to know my professors and meeting them. And I mean joking with them and working with them. About Texas State, one thing I’ll say is that the community is unmatched. I couldn’t imagine going somewhere else and connecting in such a way. I just love the community here. 

Ursula: What kind of advice would you give to the younger version of yourself? So, seventh grade Jamias, his first time about to get on stage – what would you tell him?

Jamias: Go on, continue. Do it. So many times there was, I mean, doubts, uncertainty. It’s just the telling of life, no matter how big the character. I would say just continue to learn and listen. 

INTERVIEW AND PHOTOS BY URSULA ROGERS