Columbia Central

Jim Jacobs Musical Theatre Scholarship

for continuing undergraduate students

The Jim Jacobs Musical Theatre Scholarship was established to provide support to continuing Musical Theatre students.

Deadline to Apply: February 01, 2026

• How to Apply

  Visit Internal Scholarships and click on APPLY FOR SCHOLARSHIPS to access the College-Wide Undergraduate Scholarship Application. Only complete scholarship applications submitted by the deadline will be reviewed by the scholarship committee. 

  Please follow all directions carefully. Students must submit the following materials to make a complete Jim Jacobs Musical Theatre Scholarship application. There are five parts to the application:

  PART 1: RESUME

  Provide an up-to-date theatrical resume.

  • Your resume should represent your full theatrical history, including name of show, roles played, and venue.

  Please upload your resume in .pdf, .doc, or .docx format. 
  
  PART 2: HEADSHOT

  Provide your headshot with stats included.

  Please upload your headshot in .pdf, .doc, .docx, or .jpeg format.
  
  PART 3: ESSAY and VIDEO

  Submit an essay and video for consideration by the scholarship committee.

  ESSAY: Your essay should address the following in 250 words or less:

  • What do you hope to accomplish as a Musical Theatre student at Columbia College Chicago?

  Please upload your essay in .pdf, .doc, or .docx format.
  
  VIDEO: Your video should contain BOTH of the following:
  

  1. Audition of one song and one monologue that contrast. One example is a Golden Age song with a contemporary monologue. Song should be no more than 32 measures, and the monologue no longer than 1 minute.
  2. Dance audition of a one-minute solo demonstrating technical proficiency in Ballet or Jazz.

  Please upload your video in .mov, .wmv, .flv, or .mp4 format, or upload a .pdf, .doc, or .docx document with an external link to your video. Note: Upload size limit is 50MB.
  
  PART 4: LETTER OF RECOMMENDATION
  

  One letter of recommendation is required from a Columbia faculty member in the Music or Theatre department.

  For your convenience, the online application will send an email notification directly to the person you've chosen to complete your recommendation. Please be prepared with the email address of your recommender. 

  Remember to contact your recommenders directly before providing their information on the application. Since this application is part of the larger College-Wide Undergraduate Scholarship application, also note the specific scholarship(s) for which they will be recommending you. Be sure to give recommenders as much time as possible to write letters. Requests made at the last minute are often difficult to fulfill by the deadline.

  PART 5: FAFSA SUBMISSION SUMMARY
  A current FAFSA Submission Summary must be on file. To receive a FAFSA Submission Summary, students must complete a 2026-27 financial aid application (FAFSA) by February 1, 2026.
  
  

  Access online applications through Internal Scholarships.

• About Jim Jacobs

  Jim Jacobs -- actor, singer, playwright, and songwriter -- is the coauthor of Grease, one of the most popular and influential works in the history of the American musical. A native of Chicago, Jacobs based Grease on his experiences as a teenage "greaser" in the late 1950s at Taft High School on the city's Northwest Side, where he played guitar and sang with such groups as DDT & The Dynamiters and Lefty & The El-Rays. Jacobs began his theatrical career in Chicago in the 1960s, where he was part of the first wave of the "Off-Loop Theatre" that helped make the city an international cultural capital. He worked with the fabled Hull House Theater under artistic director Robert Sickinger and with Second City co-founder Paul Sills, and his performance in the title role of Jimmy Shine in 1969 at the Candlelight/Forum Theatre under director William Pullinsi earned him a Joseph Jefferson Award nomination for best actor. He also appeared in the classic 1969 film Medium Cool.

  In 1970, Jacobs and his fellow actor and writing partner, the late Warren Casey, wrote Grease. In its premiere at Chicago's Kingston Mines Theatre in 1971, the show was a runaway success and attracted the attention of New York producers. Grease opened Off-Broadway in 1972 and transferred to Broadway later the same year. At the time the original production closed in 1980, it was the longest-running show in Broadway history. Its 1978 film version, for which Jacobs and Casey penned new songs, was a monumental hit; a sequel, Grease 2, was released in 1982, and a second sequel is in development.

  Grease helped launch the careers of such stars as Barry Bostwick, Richard Gere, Patrick Swayze, Peter Gallagher, Treat Williams, Sutton Foster, Elaine Page, Adrienne Barbeau, Megan Mullally, Judy Kaye, Marilu Henner, Stockard Channing, and John Travolta. Jacobs' other writing credits include Island of Lost Co-eds, also coauthored with Warren Casey. A spoof of 1950s sci-fi/horror/jungle movies, the show was produced at Columbia College as the inaugural production in the Getz Theatre Center.

  Though Jim Jacobs now resides in Southern California, his ties to Chicago and to Columbia College remain deep and strong.

  "Every child, growing up, has a dream of what they're going to be someday," says Jacobs. "I dreamed of being an actor, a singer, a dancer -- a performer. I kept thinking and saying to myself, 'Give me a chance, I know I can do it. I really can.' And so, here I am, many years later and extremely happy to be able to give some young person the chance he or she needs. This is for those students who once thought that what they were thinking about, most of the time, was an impossible dream. It is with great pleasure that I can establish a musical theatre scholarship at Columbia College Chicago."

  

• Scholarship Terms
  • Application must be submitted by February 1, 2026 (11:59 pm) for review by the committee
  • Amount of this one-year scholarship is up to $5,000, awarded half in Fall and half in Spring
  • Scholarship is applied toward tuition only
  • Students’ scholarships that are applied toward tuition may not exceed the amount of their tuition costs
  • Recipients must maintain full-time, undergraduate enrollment during the 2026-27 academic year
  • Recipients who graduate in Fall 2026 may receive the full scholarship amount in Fall 2026
  • Recipients must have submitted all outstanding documents to Columbia Central before the scholarship can be disbursed. Students can review missing documents in the MyColumbia portal under Missing Documents
  • Scholarship may be used toward a study abroad program through one of Columbia's student exchange programs, excluding Summer sessions. Please note: Recipients who enroll in an independent study abroad program not associated with Columbia College will forfeit their scholarship during the semester spent abroad
  • The rules and regulations governing other sources of financial aid (federal, state, institutional and other grants, gifts, or loans) will apply
  • Columbia College Chicago reserves the right to withhold the scholarship in any year in which, at the sole discretion of the scholarship committee, suitable candidates cannot be found among applicants

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