Exclusive: Watch Highlights from NextGen Spotlight Benefit Concert

And this is next in spotlight and tonight is feeling just right

So hey, let's start the show. Oh, oh. There's always going to be another mountain

I'm always going to want to make it move. Always going to be an uphill battle

Sometimes we're going to have to. lose ain't about how fast I get there ain't about what's waiting on the other side

it's the climb tonight we are at next gen spotlight at Chelsea Table and Stage

which is one of my all-time favorite nights because we are highlighting the next generation

of young artists new works and heavy hitters in our community and highlighting an educator

which is one of my dear friends, Jennifer Shoe from Passaic Valley Regional High School

Help me this feeling last till forever. Tell me the bad times are clean washed away

Please understand that it's still strange and frightened. The losers like I've been is so hard to say

Mama Daddy give me the world I wanted the way my nana described it Yeah

What's important about tonight is that this is the genesis of where all our support comes from

It's young artists who realize that as artists, they can also be activists and advocates

And by reaching out beyond themselves, they in fact enrich the very creativity that makes them outstanding in their

work. So it was great to see them on the stage tonight, being here helping us raise some

money so that we can in turn that into support for the entertainment community fund and through

our national grants program, but mainly engage with each other that allows us to embrace each

other in times of need. When I was a child I stayed wide awake, climbed to the highest place on every fire escape

restless to climb. I got every scholarship saved every dollar. The first to go to college, and why I'm coming back home with my eyes on the horizon

I just feel like incredibly blessed to just be in this room with these people

and everybody on stage was so incredibly talented, and just like, even backstage

everybody was so sweet. And just being a part of a community and trying to enter a community like that

it a blessing every day It phenomenal and I met this one doing a production And what I loved is you showed me a picture of us at the stage door

when you were even more of a child. Yes. And I just like passing it on to the next gen

See what I did there? I just think it's really important. And I love getting to see stars like this

Just get their start and you're a star. I love seeing that, and I love that BCEFA is a place that helps people that need help to become the star that they are

In other words, just from worrying whether the wedding is worn or raw for a person can develop a core

You can feed her all day with the vitamin A and the bromal fizz

but the medicine never gets anywhere near where the trouble is. If she's getting a kind of a name for herself and the name ain't here, it's a power

and can develop a call. Well, Broadway Cairns always allows me to sort of explore my director hat

and I love putting together new benefits or new ideas to sort of help them continue to do the great work that they do

On the National Tour of Lion King, I got to do a bunch of benefits all over the country, and so here in New York I want to do just that

but I also want to highlight the next generation of artists and the new crop or new works

or people just starting out up-and-comers, and I love that next allows me to sort of do that in a way that celebrates diversity it inclusive and it just fun I was very excited I was also a little nervous which is always a good thing but once I got up there and I saw the energy and the warmth of everybody it just felt so it just felt so good to sing

for everyone, like hearing everyone sing and share their talent for such an important cause

It was awesome. And when the woman that hear what it goes

you can say to yourself, well, I give what I give, but the woman who won't wait for you knows

that however you live, there's a part of you, always standing by

mapping out the sky. Till we find our place

on the path unwinding in the circle

Yeah. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha