A song born from one Minneapolis teenager’s worst audition fears is now carrying his name far beyond the Twin Cities. James Pumphrey’s original work has earned a national songwriting honor, a performance by a Broadway artist in New York and a starring role in a St. Paul production this weekend.
Pumphrey, a recent Great River School graduate, wrote “Am I Doing Enough?” after he believed an audition at Park Square Theatre had gone badly. But as FOX 9 reports, that apparent setback turned into a career-sized plot twist when he was cast in “Little Shop of Horrors.”
One anxious audition became a national songwriting win
The song follows a young actor wrestling with rejection, artistic insecurity and the fear of falling behind. Pumphrey submitted it to the National Alliance for Musical Theatre’s Musical Theater Songwriting Challenge, where it was selected as one of eight winning songs.
The National Endowment for the Arts says the winners were chosen from 109 submissions representing students in 28 states. The program gave Pumphrey and the other student writers professional orchestration, mentoring and a chance to develop songs that could eventually belong in full-scale musicals.
The Broadway connection came with a useful reality check
In June, “Am I Doing Enough?” was performed by a Broadway artist at a concert at New World Stages in New York after being professionally orchestrated. Playbill reported that the concert featured performers including Kate Rockwell, Steven Huynh and Oluchi Nwaokorie.
That is the Broadway debut attached to Pumphrey’s story—not a Broadway role for him just yet, but a professional New York performance of his writing. The next act is much closer to home: rehearsals are underway for “Little Shop of Horrors,” which runs Friday through Sunday at Park Square Theatre in St. Paul, according to FOX 9.
The recognition also builds on a distinctly local music story. In 2025, Pumphrey was the first recipient of a MacPhail Center for Music scholarship created around music’s healing power, after volunteering to play and sing for young children at a Minneapolis crisis nursery, FOX 9 previously reported.
Pumphrey plans to study opera performance at Northwestern University and has said he hopes to perform, write and teach music. For now, a song about wondering whether he is doing enough has offered a pretty convincing answer.
