Annabelle Duffy and Brandon Sarti are Broadway bound.

The pair in May won best actress and best actor in the High School Musical Theatre Awards, which featured productions from 23 Capital Region districts and was held at Proctors in Schenectady. On Monday, Duffy and Sarti head to Manhattan for nine days of attending performances and taking classes with Broadway professionals.

They are among 80 high-schoolers nationwide who will be participating in the National High School Musical Theatre Awards, all invited after winning top awards in their regional competitions. The week will culminate with a performance and awards ceremony on June 25 at the Minskoff Theatre on Broadway. Laura Benanti, who won a Tony Award for her performance in the 2008 Broadway revival of "Gypsy," will host.

"I've never been more excited in my life," said Duffy, who in the fall will be a senior at Albany High School. She won best actress at Proctors for her performance in the school's "Hairspray." She said, "I mean, the host is Laura Benanti, for crying out loud. She is one of my idols!"

Sarti, who will miss his graduation ceremony from South Glens Falls High School while he is away, said, "I didn't know I could sing at all until fourth grade. I thought I was into sports, but I turned out not be be any good at any of them. ... I tried theater, stuck with it, worked at it, and here we are."

He will attend SUNY Fredonia in the fall to study musical theater. Sarti won at Proctors for his performance as Sam Wheat, the dead boyfriend who communicates with his beloved girlfriend through a medium in "Ghost the Musical," a stage adaptation of the 1990 movie starring  Patrick Swayze as Sam.

Duffy said that she, too, intends to pursue musical theater in college, though she has another year of high school to decide where. She said she expects the experience in New York will further fortify her resolve to become a professional performer.

Referring to a theater magazine's website, she said, "Playbill just released a slideshow of the headshots of everyone who's going to be there, and I was looking through and thinking those could be some of my friends next week." She added, "I keep using the word 'crazy' when I talk about winning (at Proctors) and then being able to  go next week, but I really can't think of any other way to describe it."

Among the activities of participants in the National High School Musical Theatre Awards -- known as the Jimmys, after revered theater owner and producer James M. Nederlander -- will be dinner at Sardi's. The restaurant is located in the heart of Manhattan's theater district and has been a fabled destination for almost a century for Broadway stars and audiences, including Nederlander, who died two years ago at age 94.

Happily noting the similarity between the restaurant's name and his own, Sarti, who has not been there before, said, "In middle school I really wanted to be a CSI investigator, but I got over that because I figured out I could die or something. ... Next week, I'm going to be part of the Jimmy's and a Sarti eating at Sardi's."

The Capital Region High School Musical Theatre Awards are cosponsored by Proctors and the Times Union. It launched in 2017 with judges evaluating productions from 16 districts, growing to 23 for this year. The third annual HSMTA will be held at Proctors next May.