Choir students auditioned for roles in the upcoming musical, Les Miserables, on September 29 and 30, and select girls and boys attended callbacks on October 7 and 8, respectively. While initial auditions were judged mainly by the singing ability of the applicants, the callback performances are expected to assess acting ability as well.
According to choir teacher Mark Roberts, there is a stronger focus on vocal quality for this show than for past musicals. “With this particular show singing is kind of paramount, because it’s unlike a lot of musical theater shows. It’s sung from beginning to end, like there’s no scenes of dialogue,” he said.
“The first thing we try to decide is who do we want to hear again, who has a legitimate chance of holding up one of the roles we’re casting, and the second is to hear the auditions and we each try to plug in the right people in the right spots, so it’s like a big jigsaw puzzle,” director Dave Pinkham added.
According to junior Meg Newton, most students chose a song to sing for the initial auditions about a month before the date, and then set up their audition time online. “You come in and you get your number, and they take a picture of you, and then you sit down and you go up one by one and sing like 16 bars,” Newton explained.
Students were encouraged to pick an audition song similar to the theme of musicality in Les Miserables. Sophomore Jenna Englund sang “Raining” from the musical Rocky. “It had a lot of emotion for what Les Mis would be, a lot of the same emotion,” she said.
Sophomore Frenel Fransisco sang “More I Cannot Wish You” from Guys and Dolls for his first audition. “It’s kind of like a love interest song, and Les Mis has a really important love type thing to it; also it’s in my range,” he explained.
After going through the auditions, Pinkham, Roberts, vocal coach Grace Chaffey and production manager Michelle Miller chose 10 to 15 boys to audition for the 5 male leads, and 10 to 15 girls to audition for the 4 female leads. “We had a lot of people who are very talented and capable of singing many of the roles, so the callbacks in particular are larger than the callbacks we’ve had sometimes,” Pinkham said.
Although there isn’t much dance choreography in this musical, students are expected to act during the 2nd round of auditions. “We don’t have any kind of a dance audition this year. It’s really, this year, very much dependent on the music so we picked longer selections of songs to give the auditioners an opportunity to show us how they can tell a story with their musical ability,” explained Pinkham.
“It sort of depends on vocal range and whether we think they can play a character; if the character is meant to be like a grandmother we’re not going to choose someone who looks like they’re 12,” Roberts added.
Newton opted to sing “A Whole New World” from the movie Aladdin for her first audition, and was invited back to audition for the part of Madame Thernardier. She sang “Master of the House,” a song by the innkeeper’s wife. “I wasn’t really expecting [being called back,] but I was excited when they sent it out and I was on there,” she said.
“I didn’t really get to pick [the part] and I just kind of went into it blindsided because I don’t really care, I just have fun doing these,” Newton said. “It looks like a fun role.”
Englund was called back to audition for the roles of Madame Thernardier, Cosette, and Eponine. “It was overwhelming when I first got there, because this is my first time to be actually getting a call back, then we kind of all started talking and we all got really friendly and it was really nice and then it kind of just became like we were singing; it’s wasn’t as if we were auditioning for a role,” she said.
Englund believes that she has the best chance of securing the role of Madame Thernardier. “I would really like to get Eponine, because the song is the most well known and it’s really crazy, but Madame Thernardier I would have the most fun with and I could kind of show the most,” she explained.
Fransisco was called back to audition for the role of Marius, which he believes is an appropriate role for him. “I guess you could say I’m kind of a lover type guy,” he said. “Honestly I was pretty open, but this is my first year doing it so I was just like, ‘whatever works’.”
Despite being one of the few to receive a callback, Fransisco is not confident in securing a spot for the musical. “I’m up against Abe Soane, who’s like really good at singing. He’s amazing. Ricky Lomas, so many other good people,” Fransisco said.
Newton put her fear aside during the moment. “You just kind of have to give it all you’ve got or it’s kind of pointless,” she explained.
