Channeling nerves, focusing terror, putting their best personality forward: 30 auditionees sang their best at the first of a three-session try-out for Annie Jr.
Director Steve Morse and his crew are casting for ten major roles and 22 speaking parts in the Traverse City Children's Theatre production. After final callbacks this afternoon, the cast will jump into nine weeks of intense rehearsal culminating in opening night on December 8 and five subsequent shows over two weekends.
Singing, dancing and acting in front of a crowd, with a stick-on number as your calling card, may not get easier with experience but it is bearable.
"I'm still nervous but that's the fun of it," said Abby Alexander, 15, a junior at Traverse City West Senior High School who has been involved with the Children's Theatre for four years. "It almost makes you perform better because of the adrenaline rush."
Geoffrey Wallace, 14, a homeschooled eighth grader, still gets tense but is philosophical about auditions after years of participating in theater. He and the hopefuls sang parts of either "Hard Knock Life" and "Tomorrow," both in small groups and solo. These dozen or so measures were meant to showcase not just each person's singing voice but their stage presence and confidence.
"The first audition I did I was really nervous but after that you just have to wing it and do the best you can," he said.
Both teens are in that zone where roles can be scarce: they are not yet old enough for adult roles and have aged out of playing a child. Wallace, appreciating the many new faces at the Monday night session of the Annie Jr. audition, will be pleased at any part he lands in the musical classic.
"I never really think that a role is not right for me," he said. "You just take the best you can in that role and do the best you can — the director sees something in you for the role."
Morse, a playhouse veteran both on and off stage, told the students ages ten through 17 that talent was not the only attribute that would win them a place.
"We're more interested in people who want to work hard and listen, talent is not all," he said.
By Wednesday evening, Morse and his staff — Denni Don Hunting as assistant director, Andrea DiGregorio as vocal director, Ted Clous as music director and Kat Brown as choreographer — will have made the hard choices on who will do what. And maybe even who will do nothing, who did not make the cut. They also have to decide whether to double cast roles, including the pivotal role of Annie.
"Choosing one actor over another is one of the toughest jobs I have, someone's feelings are going to get hurt," Morse told the children Monday evening. " Please, please don't be discouraged; I know you will be, I've been through many auditions. But try to look ahead to the next opportunity."
Participants in Annie Jr. must have completed, or be enrolled in this fall, a series of prerequisites classes that comprise the Traverse City Children's Theater L'il Broadway series. Woven in the theatre's regular offerings every semester since last year are specific acting, dancing and singing courses geared to build musical theater skills for the theater's periodic main stage productions. Children and teens not planning to participate in L'il Broadway productions may also enroll in these classes.
If someone had specific training in an area, such as singing or dance, that might fulfill a L'il Broadway prerequisite, noted Luis Araquistain, director of the Children's Theatre. The program will expand next year to include a fourth concentration in theater crafts: set design, painting and building as well as some costuming.
"Our goal basically is to try and improve our offerings and training," said Araquistain, who is also the producer of Annie Jr. "And one of the ideas that came up was how to tie a stage production to our regular session classes to create a training program that will actually work towards this goal of producing the best stage production."
For more information on the Traverse City Children's Theatre classes, productions or the L'il Broadway program, call 947-2210 or see the web site www.tcctheatre.org.