Auditions set for children’s Christmas production
PRINCETON — Auditions for this year’s Prairie Arts Council’s children’s Christmas musical are set for 6:30 p.m. Thursday and 3 p.m. Sunday at the PAC theater, 24 Park Ave. East, Princeton. Children may audition either time.
The show will take place the weekend of the Princeton Christmas Walk, Nov. 15-18. Auditions are open to children in third through eighth grades; select second-graders may be cast as well, so second graders with a strong desire to perform and an ability to follow direction are welcome to audition. Children will be asked to sing “Jingle Bells” and “America the Beautiful.” Those interested in a speaking role will be provided with a scene selection at the audition.
This year’s Christmas show, “The Meaning of the Star,” written especially for PAC’s young actors by local playwright Rachel Gorenz, is a delightful story of a family of children who complain about their grandfather coming for Christmas because he never plays with them or pays attention to them. The oldest child remembers how much their grandmother loved Christmas, and how she made snow angels with her and made their time together at Christmas extra special. Grandpa overhears the children complaining, and the children are in big trouble with their mother.
Enter three mischievous elves who have been exiled from the North Pole for various offenses, and have to do a good deed to regain admittance to the Pole. Follow their madcap adventures as they whisk the children back in time to the Christmas Pageant in the 1940s where their grandparents fell in love. See how the Elves and the children help their grandparents to find each other, almost ruin everything, and, in the end, save the pageant, their grandparents’ relationship and their chances of returning home. Armed with information about their grandparents as young people, the children are able to unlock the love within their grandfather and help him to see how their grandmother’s spirit lives on to make Christmas extra special always.
“The Meaning of the Star” debuted on the PAC stage in 2006. It features a chorus and both singing and speaking roles. Rehearsals for the performance take place evenings and weekends, usually about three times per week until the last two weeks before the show, when the rehearsal schedule increases. The children’s Christmas musical is the flagship performance of the PAC theater season.
A parent or guardian is required to accompany their child to the audition unless previous arrangements are made with the directors, and should come prepared to list their child’s height, clothing sizes and any schedule conflicts. A parent meeting will be held at the same time as the auditions to organize volunteers for the production tasks associated with such a large production. It takes many volunteers to produce a show of this magnitude, and all families are expected to help in some way.
For more information, contact directors David or Rachel Gorenz at 815-875-1267 or email gorenzfamily@gmail.com. Parents of prospective cast members are also requested to review information and expectations on the PAC website at www.theprairieartscouncil.org.
