It had been a few months since we were told we’d be
performing ‘Oliver’ and just over a week since the sight of the poster
advertising auditions had evoked an indescribable amount of excitement in me…
Stay tuned for what happened next!
-Zahra♥
I walked into the hall, unintentionally taking no heed of my friend, Keira, talking to me about Riverdale (sorry, Keira).
This was it. All the watching the show any chance I got, all the cockney accent
practice, all the times I’d been through ‘As Long As He Needs Me’ with my singing teacher, Miss Bailey; it all came down to this. I'd waited for the opportunity to take part in a school show for two years and I knew that Nancy was one of Mrs. Culkin's (our Drama teacher and director) dream roles so I was super nervous!
Eventually, everyone had entered the hall and a register was
being taken. During the introduction, Mrs. Culkin had explained to the KS3
pupils that us year 10s were probably more nervous than they were. As she said this, she was looking at
me, which caused everyone else to do so too! I laughed nervously.
The auditions had started.
First, the scripts that didn’t
involve Nancy; then, the Nancy and Dodger script and finally… the Nancy, Fagin
and Bill script. I had changed my mind to this script after a rushed pick of
the Nancy and Dodger script and had been rehearsing with Frankie, who's in my Drama class, at lunch
times. Due to Frankie being at college during auditions (which he didn’t tell
me in advance!), Johnathon and I made a last minute decision to audition
together, along with Raees who I was planning on auditioning with anyway. In
the 10 minutes we were given to prepare, we rehearsed for about 3. After the 7
minutes I had taken to go to the toilet, get water and warm up my voice, I (in a
panicked state) found Johnathon and Raees, who are both people in my Drama class by the way, just outside the refectory. As we were short on time, we stayed there to rehearse. We only got chance for 2 rehearsals but, to our relief, they went quite well! Now it was time...
We were the first to audition with the Nancy, Fagin and Bill
script, as we had wanted. My friends cheering me on, I took to the stage
with Johnathon as Fagin and Raees as Bill. I was nervous, but ready. The script
we auditioned with was the scene in which Nancy refuses to bring Oliver back
from Mr. Brownlow’s. I was happy with our audition – I thought it went well and
we were congratulated on it too! The thing I was most worried about, the
accent, actually turned out not to matter so much.
Soon, it was time to sing. Though Miss Bailey was on
maternity leave at the time of the auditions, I knew I had her supporting me
and was so grateful for everything she had helped me with. Though people expect
singing to be the thing people would be most nervous about, I was actually
really excited about it! The most challenging aspect of the singing for me was
allowing myself to fully express the character’s emotion, as this is something
I am yet to get used to. I was first up to sing and, having taken on board all the advice I’d been given, I was proud of how I did – and super happy with the
response! Unexpectedly, I received a big clap at the end, which made me feel
amazing! Even more to my surprise, I was congratulated by Miss Baron on how
well I got the emotion across – that was a relief!
After the auditions, someone told me that they didn’t know I
sang, to which Khadija (my friend) responded “She doesn’t shut up!” (She’s not wrong). Jess (my best friend) told me that she knew I could sing, but "not like that!" which felt awesome!
Apparently, I gave her goose bumps!
I went home, super happy with my audition, and awaited the
cast list…
Stay tuned for what happened next!
-Zahra♥
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