I said I would eventually post information regarding Christian participating in our "Super Secret Activity" of performing in a musical show through the El Dorado Musical Theatre (EDMT) group ("Youth Theatre at its Best"). Christian saw a couple of EDMT productions last year (Alice in Wonderland Jr. and Beauty and the Beast) and we knew some people in the shows and he asked if he could give it a shot. I'm glad he was willing to try something that was more artistic and not all sports related.
EDMT does their auditions for most of their groups, including the training show Christian was in, differently than most theatre groups. Basically, if you are register in time, then you are in and auditions are only used to determine which part you will play in the show --- they do not use auditions to "cut" kids out. Of course, registering is no small feat. They started with 1 cast of 33 kids and would take 6 on a waiting list. If they got more than 6 then they would open a second cast… And a third cast… But they would cap it at three casts, about 105 kids 5 - 9 years old. Those 105 spots fill up in a matter of 20-30 minutes. So when it came time to register I was online at 8pm and finished at 8:02 and Christian was like the 28th to register. He was in!!
So at auditions the kids go in front of the directors, choreographer, parents and sing a 1 minute song (a capella or to music), learn and perform a dance routine and then say some lines to show off their acting abilities. Without any vocal training Christian decided to sing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and he did fine. You can tell those kids that been in other shows and have had training, there were some AMAZING voices singing during the auditions! Christian did his best and I'm very proud of him. During the acting phase I thought he would do great, but he decided not to repeat any of the lines - which is fine though I was hoping he would.
The result was he was assigned part of the Ensemble cast, which I expected for his first time out.
Christian's Audition song on video - the sound is low so you made need to crank up the volume...