Nobody on this creative team is interested in showbizzy children. We have been to every drama after-school program, every theater summer camp that exists. “We look in a lot of places we don’t usually look. “We check that all day, every day,” Sugarman says. Young hopefuls are able to upload their video auditions to the show’s website. One of the secrets to casting for Broadway, London and now the touring productions has been to let the kids find the show. Then the kids we did find set the bar really high, so it’s been our challenge to hit that bar ever since.” “We just didn’t know what we’d be able to find. “Of course, we ended up finding killer performers for the show,” Sugarman says by phone from outside an audition room in New York before heading into a meeting with the Australian “School of Rock” casting director. When Sugarman, who works with Tara Rubin Casting, heard that the show would need young musical prodigies who could sing, act and play, her first response was, as she recalls, “utter paralyzing fear.” If you think it’s easy finding young performers who can meet all the challenges of “School of Rock,” talk to Merri Sugarman, a veteran of the casting industry who has been feeding kids into the show since its earliest workshop performances. “I have a really cool solo.” Vincent Molden, 12, of Chicago plays lead guitarist Zack. “We play ‘Teacher’s Pet,’ and all the kids are onstage and rocking out,” he says. Molden’s favorite moment in the show comes during a “Battle of the Bands” scene in which the kids are competing with adults. “I have to find that time, but I have been able to do it.” Once he was through the rigorous audition process for the show, which includes approval by Lloyd Webber himself, he discovered that balancing performing, rehearsing and schooling while on tour has left precious little time for him to play his guitar. Having picked up an electric guitar when he was 8, inspired by AC/DC’s Angus Young, Molden could only dream of playing the instrument onstage. Vincent Molden, a 12-year-old from Chicago, landed the plum role of Zack, the lead guitarist and aspiring songwriter in the “School of Rock” band. The touring production of “School of Rock” rolls into the Orpheum Theatre as part of the SHN season on Wednesday, June 27.
But a big-city hit isn’t really a hit until it hits the road. “School of Rock,” based on the 2003 film of the same name starring Jack Black, is an unlikely hit for Andrew Lloyd Webber, who started out with rock in “Jesus Christ Superstar” but became better known for the feline frolicking of “Cats” and the orchestral bathos of “The Phantom of the Opera.” This fall, the original Broadway “Rock” celebrates three years at the Winter Garden Theatre (where “Cats” ran, seemingly, forever) and the London production celebrates two years. School may be out for summer, but “School of Rock,” as they say, rocks on.
(Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP) Evan Agostini / Associated Press Show More Show Less Matthew Murphy Show More Show Less 2 of2 Andrew Lloyd Webber, winner of the lifetime achievement award, poses in the press room at the 72nd annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall on Sunday, June 10, 2018, in New York. 1 of2 Theodora Silverman, an 11-year-old from New York City, as bass player Katie in the national tour of “School of Rock,” with Rob Colletti.
0 kommentar(er)
