Students Audition for Winter Musical, Les Miserables

The Arrowhead Drama Department held auditions for Les Miserables on November 9th and 10th from 6:00 – 9:30 pm in the choir room. The auditions were open to all Arrowhead students. The students needed to show both singing and acting in their audition to bring a character to life during the song and have the emotions of the character as well.

The students that were on the callback list posted on the Arrowhead Drama website have callback auditions on November 12th from 6-10 pm. 

The performance dates for Les Miserables are February 2nd – 6th, 2022.

Brady Landis, a freshman at Arrowhead, said, “I felt that I portrayed Marius’s impulsiveness and emotions well during Empty Chairs At Empty Tables. Mainly my actions, facial expressions, and the way I [sang, I’m] confident in.” 

Students had to come prepared with one song almost memorized or memorized from the audition song excerpts packet, that can be found here. Students also had to know the ensemble song At the End of the Day to sing as a whole group.

Maralynn Markano, an English, acting, and advanced speech teacher, drama director, and stage crew advisor at Arrowhead, told students to pick a song that they were confident in and could sing the best.

Landis said, “It was nice that they let us choose the order that we went in as a group. It was good they let us sing second songs if we wanted to so we can show different skills such as acting, and how we sing as that character.”

Landis said that he was mostly happy with how it turned out from the acting to singing that he did during his audition. He said his second song could have been better with the timing. 

Students were able to perform a second song if they wanted to and if they had one prepared, but it was not required for students to have a second song prepared for their audition. As Landis mentioned, the second songs allowed students to show different skills and act as different characters. 

Lexi Brunner, a freshman at Arrowhead, said, “I felt very confident in my singing, however, I do feel like I could have performed more in character, such as moving my body more, which in my opinion might have helped me use my nerves for energy.” 

Brunner said her audition went exactly how she wanted it to go and she felt really good about it when she went home. 

Markano encouraged students to audition with a solo song to really push themselves and show their true talents on their own. If students wanted to be in the ensemble and audition with others, there was an option to sing  At the End of the Day in a small group. 

Brunner said, “I thought the audition process was great and really helped me calm my nerves. It felt good to warm up as a group and Ms. Elmeegreen’s Energy Ball Exercise was very helpful.”

Rayen Elmergreen, a Language Arts Teacher, the Drama Assistant Director, and the Forensics advisor at Arrowhead, has an Energy Ball Exercise that was used at the beginning of the auditions after the students warmed up their voices to help get their nerves out. The activity started out with the students having their eyes closed visualizing and creating a picture of a ball of nervous energy growing in their hands and got heavier. After that they had to face towards the back wall and play catch with themselves against the wall using their nervous energy ball. 

All the students that were brave enough to go on Tuesday in the first time slot were nervous since they were the first ones and didn’t know what to expect fully during auditions. They all showed what they are capable of and showed their true talents.