By Allie Pecorin
The Naperville North Performing Arts Center will be auditioning a cast of third through eighth grade students to take part in the children’s choir for this years spring musical, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
The auditions, which will be held on Saturday, February 25th, are open to students who currently attend elementary or junior high schools that will feed into Naperville North.
“One of the main reasons we picked this show was to articulate a connection between elementary, junior high, and high school students,” said Nick Janssen, NNHS music teacher and director of the upcoming musical.
The audition process will be set up in a workshop format. The kids will work with Naperville North students to learn a short song and dance for their audition. Their final audition will take place in a group.
Sarah Broad, a sophomore who has been involved with the theatre program at NNHS since her freshmen year, is one of four students who will help to cast and direct the children’s choir. Broad believes that this is a great opportunity to get kids interested in theatre and to acquaint them with Naperville North’s performing arts.
“I think that these kids will have a really good experience working with [the cast] and the music program in general. Hopefully that will cause them to want to be involved with music when they get into high school,” said Broad.
Janssen expressed a similar hope. He said that those in the children’s choir will have an opportunity to learn what it is like to be in a NNHS production.
Sixty children will be selected for parts in one of the two choirs being cast for the show. Each cast will perform in half of the shows, which will be performed at the end of May.
Broad said that she thinks it will be an interesting experience to work with younger children in the cast.
“There will definitely be challenges working with such a huge age range, but it will definitely bring something new to the music program. It will definitely be interesting to watch and see how they meld together with the other kids,” said Broad.
The children who are selected for the cast will practice on Saturday’s during March and April. They will appear onstage for a large portion of the production.
