If you’ve ever sat and watched a musical and thought, ‘I wish I could do that’, you can.
Director Mallary Duncan and choreographer Kasey Stephan Charlebois are putting together a big cast for the next Rotary Club of Huntsville/Huntsville Festival of the Arts (HFA) community musical and they want everyone, young and old, who has ever had a desire to do musical theatre to come out and audition.
“We are looking for everything. We want people who just want to do it,” says Duncan, adding, “The passion for community theatre in Huntsville is crazy.”
The pair chose to submit Oliver! – a musical based on the novel Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens – in their application earlier this year because of its large cast; roles for both young and old, experienced and not; and its potential for fun. Rotary and HFA agreed that is was a great choice and selected their pitch for the annual community production.
“We are looking for people who want to have a lot of fun, that’s our number one. That’s why we’re doing it,” says Charlebois. “We want people who are open and brave to put themselves out there: singers, dancers, people who have never done it before, people who have done it for years, people who are stage curious.”
The pair say they will adapt the production based on the people comprising the cast.
“We are ready for any skill level of cast to come in,” says Duncan. “You start from the hardest level and give people the challenge and you say let’s go for it, and then you can bring it down (if needed).” She gives the song “Oom Pah Pah”, one of her favourite numbers in the show, as an example. “It can be a massively complicated, incredible dance number or it can be people sitting at the bar banging their steins and singing at the top of their lungs. Either way it makes people feel great and happy and it blows people away.”
“The grittiness, the street-wise stuff will be so much fun to dig into with adults and kids,” adds Charlebois.
If you’re thinking of auditioning and concerned about the British accents, don’t be – Duncan is doing away with them for this production because they are so difficult to get right, particularly in a story with so much class separation. “That’s definitely a stylistic choice I made. It’s very distracting.”
Duncan also says she’ll be focusing on making the characters real. “You can make the characters very wild in a show like this, but I think the relationships need to feel real. It’s about making it as relatable for the audience as possible, and meaningful. It is a really beautiful story about a kid who wants a family. I think we can all understand that. There are these beautiful relationships that you can really build on and see on stage.”
And then there are the friendships that develop between cast mates. “It’s a big time commitment, community theatre always is. You spend so much time together,” says Duncan. “The show is the goal, it’s the beautiful ending to a love story that you have for four months working together.”
Charlebois adds that they’re looking for people committed to seeing the production through, whether that commitment is large or small. “We can work with people who want a smaller time commitment and also people who want a major role, but the main players really need to be committed. It’s not fun for anyone when you’re struggling to get everyone in the room at the same time to rehearse a scene.”
Even though auditions haven’t begun, the production side of the show is well underway thanks to a raft of volunteers ready to help. “The Rotary Club and Huntsville Festival of the Arts are incredible. I’ve had so much support from them and have started to build an amazing production team,” says Duncan. “It’s really amazing. Community theatre is not like this anywhere else.”
Auditions will be held at the Algonquin Theatre on October 22 from 1-5 p.m. (bring music and prepare a song from musical theatre) with callbacks within the following week. Rehearsals start in January. Oliver! runs from April 13-15 and 20-22, 2018 at the Algonquin Theatre.
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