Auditions were held on January 7-9, 2015 by Ms. Utrera, the choir teacher at SJHS, and Mrs. Gleave, a math teacher at SJHS. Students of any grade were invited to show their talent and strive for a place on the cast of SJHS’s reproduction of “The Music Man Jr,” which is a shortened and simplified version of “The Music Man,” a musical by Meredith Wilson and Franklin Lacey.
Starting at 3:00pm on January 7th, students, who had signed up previously, came in to audition. According to Mrs. Gleave each student had to prepare to sixteen measures of a song from a different play or musical to perform, the equivalent of the first verse of a song, and then were required to learn and perform a short dance number. The auditions ended at 7:00pm, but resumed on January 8th (3-7pm), and callbacks were on January 9th.
A lot of students ended up auditioning. Chloe Wimmer, a ninth grader that auditioned, explained the reason she auditioned was because one of her friends wrote her name on the sign-up sheet; she said, “I figured why not?” According to Giselle Paz, a ninth grader that auditioned, auditioning was a pretty scary and nervous experience.
Most of those that auditioned said they had been in a school musical/play before. All the ninth graders (mentioned above) had been in several plays in elementary school. A few are, “The Jungle Book,” “Aladdin,” and “101 Dalmations.”
Performances of The Music Man will run March 12, 13, 14 and 16.