Whit Jury: A New Stage

One of City’s brightest performers reflects on a high school in the arts and on what’s next

By Esther Puderbaugh

A notification pops up on my phone. Whit is on his way to our interview. I text him back saying we can meet in the music wing.

Over the past three years, City’s music wing has been, in many ways, a second home for Whit Jury ‘23. Since their freshman year, Jury has been involved in choir, show choir, drama, speech, and recently co-founded CHS SMAC (City High School’s Student Managed Actors and Crew). Jury has also been selected for the Iowa All-State Chorus and was nominated for an award at the Iowa High School Musical Theater Awards for his lead role of Edward Bloom in City’s production of Big Fish.

Despite all of these achievements over the past years, Jury’s high school experience is far from his first exposure to performing arts. They cite their artistic family as fuel for their interest in performance.

“My immediate family is entirely arts, but different facets of it,” Jury said. “Me and my sister, Thomazin (Jury ‘21), are in the performing part of it. My mom [was] an art teacher, and my dad works with film. [He’s] a writer and he’s been a director before and a producer of things. So [that’s] a branch off of the performance Thomazin and I have.”

When he was seven years old, Jury remembers vividly seeing Thomazin in a dance recital and deciding he wanted to perform.

“I saw my sister perform in this dance recital [that] was based on fairy tales,” Jury said. “I thought it was the best thing in the world.”

Jury’s draw to performance was his love of playing pretend as a kid.

“I always liked playing pretend as a kid. Just [to] come up with my own ways of being a character,” Jury said. “I kept with it because I was always having fun. And that’s all I really want when I go to perform: I just want to have fun and entertain the audience. If I’m having fun then the audience will be having fun.”

One of Jury’s favorite memories from their years in performing arts at City is last year’s musical, Big Fish.

“I think that the highest highlight I’ve had here at City has been during Big Fish,” Jury said. “But during that show, I also had some of the lowest lows.”

Jury is particularly grateful for his castmates who helped him during that time.