Kieran's excitement

Kieran has had a whole spate of auditions this summer. In May and June, he auditioned for Northwest Children's Theater (NWCT) and Oregon Children's Theater (OCT), and in early July he had an open audition for "It's a Wonderful Life" through a smaller local theater company.

Theater is rough for little people! He didn't get the roles with OCT and never even heard back from the other theater company (yay or nay). He had big dreams of starring in one of the main stage shows at NWCT, but instead he was called back for Kids' Company Northwest, NWCT's advanced acting troupe...they are essentially the company's ambassadors out in the community. Each season they perform a musical revue at nursing homes and other locations throughout the city, in addition to two performances on the main stage. Initially, Kieran was very disappointed (because he wanted to get on the main stage), but Mike and I think that this is just the type of professional training he needs...after getting the  lead in the Hullabaloo last fall after his first-ever audition, he has high expectations for himself and doesn't understand that he needs some coaching and guidance.

Last weekend he had a five-hour audition for Kids Co., in which the 100+ kids were split into smaller groups and taught dancing, acting, and singing. We knew he was lucky to get a call-back, because the initial auditions had 400 kids participating.

This week he found out that not only did he make it into the winter troupe ("London is London") but also into the spring troupe, "Hillbilly Heaven." It will involve every Saturday all during the school year, with a break for a month from Christmas through mid-January. It's a wonderful opportunity for him, and the other kids involved seem very upbeat and encouraging. (The kids have to re-audition every year. At the end of the audition workshop, each child got up onstage for 1 minute to introduce him or herself and to do a song, dance, joke, etc.)



I'm really excited for him to step into this next phase of theater training. At age nine, he's one of the younger members of the acting troupes (aged 8-14).

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