Sizze Real Video

A sizzle reel video is a short faced paced video to advertise a show.  Here is ours:

Good reviews and good friends

After our opening, we received a couple of nice reviews:

http://www.broadwayworld.com/seattle/article/BWW-Review-The-Hills-Are-Alive-with-Character-in-5th-Aves-SOUND-OF-MUSIC-20151204

http://cityartsonline.com/articles/seasons-ring-favorite-things

and just before our opening, all of us kids received from the kids in the play Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, currently running at the Seattle Children's Theater a nice video wishing us luck:

https://www.facebook.com/SeattleChildrensTheatre/videos/10153404540281478/

That was sooo nice.  I can't wait to see CCBB on December 22nd!

http://www.sct.org/

Opening Night!

Hi, it's been too long since I last posted and I need to fill in all that has happened.  I suppose the biggest thing was Opening Night last Thursday, December 3rd, which was also my 10th birthday!  It was a crazy day.  I slept late as I do every morning now that my schedule is pretty much noon to midnight.  Then we had a short rehearsal at which we said goodbye to our director - David Bennett - and our choreographer - Trina Mills. ( It seems kind of weird, but the director and choreographer's jobs are over and they leave the company as soon as previews are finished . . . and we open.)

After rehearsal, we had an opening night pot luck dinner, at which my parents surprised me with a birthday cake and everyone sang to me.  My father really surprised me as he had told me he wasn't going to be able to be there . . . but he was!  Then, I rested before the performance and . . . we opened!













It was a great performance by everyone.  After the show, I said hello to friends who came to see the show and then went to the cast and crew party at Pacific Place in Seattle.

Here are all the "Von Trapp" kids including understudies.

And, all of us with our director, "Kurt" from the Sound of Music movie, "Elsa", "Captain Von Trapp" and "Maria"!

We stayed until after 1:00 AM!  It was a wonderful day.

On stage

Its' been a very, very busy time at The Theatre.  In the middle of this month, we worked for nine straight days at one point.  The last day of that period, rehearsals moved from the practice rooms to the stage!  It's pretty fun to rehearse on stage, especially in a theater as big and beautiful as The 5th Ave.



For a really cool look at all of the inside of The Theatre, click on this link:

http://www.gotyoulooking.com/1fifthavenuetheatre/mht.html

Seats!

I've been in a few plays now and I'm starting to understand more and more abut how plays are put on.  It's much more than just us actors showing up to rehearse and then act.  Many super nice and important people, who don't go on stage, are needed to make sure the show happens. Actually, some times it seems like the actors are only a small part of what goes on at a theatre and definitely a small part of running a place like The 5th Avenue.  I will tell you all about The 5th's important management people who run it in my next posts.

But one thing I will tell you now about one aspect of management: marketing!  The 5th  sits 2,130 people.  So, that means over 90,000 people will see The Sound of Music during this run!! (A "run" means how long a particular show is on a particular stage.  For us, it's Nov. 24 - Jan. 3rd.  With matinees, that's 43 shows!)  To sell all those tickets, The Theatre has to do a lot of "marketing", which means advertising, which means using TV, radio, buses, billboards and the internet to get people to want to come see us!

Here are a few of the ads the 5th has put out there to show us off:

A couple of the ads are actually videos of us kids auditioning:

And, here is a bus ad: 

Video size: 560 × 315    560 × 315     640 × 360     853 × 480     1280 × 720   Custom size 

Spotlight Night

Last week, on Tuesday evening, The 5th Avenue held it's "Spotlight Night" for The Sound of Music.  It's a free evening at The Theatre to spotlight or highlight the next play.  The principle actors participate by singing a few songs - in street clothes, not costumes - and there is usually a talk about the history of the play.  On Tuesday, The 5th was "sold" out - 2,130 seats!  Artistic Director of The 5th David Armstrong came on stage to talk about the making of the original play in 1959 by Rogers and Hammerstein.  I talked about them a few blog posts ago, but will again later!

Next, David talked about the real Von Trapp family.  Here is a picture of them:



A couple of really neat thing about the Von Trapps and the real story - the play is not how it really happened - is that Maria was actually very strict and stern and the Captain was gentle and warm.  If you know the play or movie, you know it's just the opposite in the play and movie, that's for sure!  Also, one of the most famous scenes in the movie and the play is of the Von Trapps escaping the Nazis by hiking over the Alps to Switzerland.  If you look at a map, hiking out of Austria over the Alps puts you closer to the Nazis . . . in Germany!!  The Von Trapps took the train to Switzerland :).  They eventually ended up in Vermont, where some of their decendants still run the Von Trapp Family Lodge today:



Another thing we learned at Spotlight Night was pretty funny.  After the play started on Broadway, staring Mary Martin as Maria, but years before the movie was even cast or filmed, Julie Andrews, who played Maria in the movie, and a famous comedian named Carol Burnett, both of whom are still alive, did a show together at Carnegie Hall in New York City during which they did a skit poking fun at The Sound of Music and Julie Andrews played Maria!

The best part of the night for me though was getting to meet backstage Duane Chase who played Kurt Von Trapp in the movie and was interviewed on stage by David.  He was so nice and took time to speak to each one of us.



And, here is a picture of all the movie Von Trapp family actors together:

 

Toward the end of the Spotlight Night, I came out with all my "siblings" and Maria to introduce ourselves and sing Do-Re-Mi (The Gretls will be played by two great actors, who will alternate performances and both were on stage.)

Finally, the Captain - Hans Altweis - joined us on stage to sing So Long Farewll to Spotlight Night and the wonderful audience who joined us, included my parents and sister Caroline!  It was a super fun night.  Thanks so much to all who came out.

More tomorrow . . .

School

I go to school in Leavenworth, WA at Osborn Elementary.  As you might guess, I'm not going to class right now and that is one of the things I miss most.  I miss my friends and my awesome teacher Mr. Hassinger, whom everyone call Mr. H.  Without Mr. H's help, I couldn't even do the play!  He has been helping my parents a lot to help me keep up with school.  And, my parents said I couldn't even do the play unless Mr. H said it was okay.  He did :).  Mr. H is such a fun and great teacher.  I can't wait to get back to school in January!



Mostly because of Mr. H, we have such a great 4th grade class.

Full cast rehearsals begin

Its been a while since my last blog post.  We've been working pretty hard on the production and my parents say it took me a while to "get back up to speed" with a busy rehearsal schedule.  Anyhow, the Von Trapp camp is over and the adult actors and we have begun regular rehearsals together.  After the Von Trapp camp - two weeks of rehearsals for just the kids in the play - we had a little party to celebrate. A few days later, we also cerebrated Halloween and even wore our costumes during rehearsal!  It was a little crazy and a lot of fun.  In the photo are the younger Von Trapp kids and our "kid wrangler" Becca.



Everyday - we rehearse six days a week - we get an hour for lunch.  Almost everyday, all the younger kids eat together.



It may seem like a lot of kids, even for the Von Trapp family :).  That's because there are also our "covers" or understudies.  An understudy or cover is an actor who rehearses with us every day and are an important part of the show.  If one of us gets sick or for some crazy reason can't make it to rehearsal or even a show - there are about 45 I think -  that actor will fill in for us.  I really don't want to get sick or miss a show, but I also really want my cover to get the chance to perform in the play.  She is sooo good.

Week Two of Von Trapp Dance Camp

Well, this week began a lot like last week, except that we had a "new" kid-wrangler.  What's a kid wrangler?  It's the person at the Theatre who is in charge of all of us kids.  She makes sure that we are well cared for and is the contact person for our parents.  I put "new" in quotes because our current kid wrangler, Becca, is the same wrangler I had last year at The 5th Ave. when I was in Carousel.  She's so great and fun, but does make sure that we get our homework done during down time and that we eat 😁 .

Days four and five

The last few days of last week were similar to the first couple of days: we rehearsed our lines and our singing and dancing.  However, I did meet with my hairdresser on Thursday and was fitted for my first costume, which is a sailor suit.  The sailor suits we are wearing are just about the same as those worn by the child actors in the original staging of the play.

I'll bet that you know the movie version of The Sound of Music and maybe you've seen the play. But, I wonder if you know that the play came out before the movie.  The play was first staged on Broadway in 1959 and stared a famous Broadway actor named Mary Martin, who was also the first Peter Pan on Broadway!  The movie came out in 1965 and stared Julie Andrews, whom most of us think of when we think of Maria in The Sound of Music.

Day three

I forgot to mention at all yet that I am cast as Marta, age 7, which is kind of funny because I'm nine.  I'm small.  It's also funny that the script doesn't have an age for Gretl.  I played Gretl in SOM with Leavenworth Summer Theater in 2013 when I actually was seven!

Another thing I am going to do in this blog is tell you about the important people in my life who help make it possible for me to do the play.  The first person is my crazy, funny, awesome, pretty, sweet, perfect sister Caroline!  She's a great skier and violinist and loves to sing, run and play.  Caroline has to be very patient at times when I am in a play. For that and a million other reasons, I love her soooooooo much!

Day two

Hi! It's Tuesday and I am on my way to my second day of of Dance Camp. The 5th calls it dance camp, but it is really an acting, singing, and dance camp to help us kids who are playing the Von Trapp family children to be fully prepared to rehearse with the adult, professional actors who start  rehearsals in two weeks.
            

             Yesterday we received our scripts and score. I put a picture of them and of the children characters below. A script is the words we say and actions (walking, dancing, etc.) we take on stage.  The score is the music that is played by the pit orchestra and that we sing.  There is a lot of music in the play, as you might guess from the title.  That's why it is called "a musical", a type of play that has a lot of music and dancing.  The pit orchestra is the orchestra that plays live, in front of and BELOW the stage during every performance!  I'll post a picture of them when they start practicing.  See you tomorrow.:)

Day One!

Well, today is my first day of rehearsals and here are pictures of me in front of the 5th Ave. marquee!

 

Tonight, I'll get home too late to write about what happened at dance camp, but I'll do it tomorrow. I am also going to tell you about the history of the play The Sound of Music and of the real Von Trapp family in the weeks to come.  Maybe I'll also learn more about the 5th Avenue Theatre and tell you that too!  Good night.  :)

The day before Day One

Today is October 11, 2015 and tomorrow I start rehearsals for The Sound of Music at The 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle!  For the next two weeks, I have "Von Trap Family Dance Camp." The plan is for me to be in school until lunch every day this week and next.  I am very excited, but also a little nervous . . . and my parents are making me go to bed early! :(