Stephen Tall, Leanne Roobol, Sarah Watson, Nik Glass, Emma Buzo, Andy Walsh and Warwick Dunham were on hand for Les Miserables auditions at The Michael Hoskins Centre, TAS.
YOUNG hopefuls from The Armidale School, New England Girls’ School and Presbyterian Ladies’ College have been treading the boards at the Hoskins Centre auditioning for Les Miserables .
More than 100 students from the three schools are vying to be cast in the schools’ collaborative musical for 2013.
Auditions are currently in their third and final week, with casting due to be announced soon.
With a March performance date, the chosen actors will spend the next few months rehearsing. Other students have volunteered to assist with backstage duties.
Director Emma Buzo said the auditions had seen a number of enthusiastic and talented students keen to get involved in the production.
“There are the obvious kids who have had singing and drama lessons who are quite polished, then there are the kids who are quite unaware of their talent,”
she said.
“A lot of them seemed to have done a lot of preparation - they’ve learnt the words to the songs and you can hear them around the school so you can already ‘hear the people sing’.
“It’s such a pleasure to work with young people and develop them into confident performers.”
Ms Buzo said while some roles will go to students as young as 10 years old, the rest of the roles will be predominantly filled by more senior students.
“It’s a very mature musical so we will tone some of those things down, but we won’t shy away from them,” she said.
Ms Buzo said the production would also feature a huge set and lighting design incorporating a revolving stage.
“The production is big in every way,” she said. “We’ve got some wonderful resources so we may as well take a chance, take a risk.”