Putting kids into musical productions has had a two-fold benefit for musical director Sarah Wilson.
First, it provided talent for the large Sooke Harbour Players’ stage productions such as Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat and Alice in Wonderland Jr. and second, it gave kids the opportunity to be on stage and express themselves musically.
Most kids love to perform and they do regularly in Sooke at the Spring Sing Out. But there isn’t much more than that for those who want to trod the boards on stage.
Leading Sing Out is Sarah Wilson, who is also the director of the Sooke Community Choir. She said when she finished with the latest musical production, Alice in Wonderland, a number of parents emailed her to ask when the next one would be.
“No community group has the opportunity (or resources) to do musical theatre,” said Wilson. The Sooke Harbour Players had never done a lids’ show and this was the first one with an all youth cast, other than Joseph,” said Wilson.
So now Wilson is hoping to form a Sooke Youth Choir as she feels there is now an appetite in Sooke for more musicals. She is looking at anyone who may be interested in singing, dancing and musical theatre.
“We are excited to announce that the Sooke Show Choir will be starting up in January 2013. We will be working on and performing segments from musicals, with music from Grease, West Side Story, Joseph, Annie, Wicked, and more, and will be performing mash-ups of some popular music, including Adele, Bruno Mars, ABBA, Michael Jackson, Coldplay, and even more!” Wilson said.
The Sooke Community Choir is supporting the idea and the youth choir with their sound system and rehearsal venue at Holy Trinity Church. The youth will be performing in front of a live audience and the production, which Wilson says is a innocent version of Glee, will incorporate dance, simple costumes and live instrumental musicians.”
“It’s like Glee rated G, the innocent version,” she said.
To make this a go ahead project 30 youth are need to fill the ranks. and there is a participation cost of $60 per child to cover associated costs such as rentals, sheet music, insurance, professional instruction, poster, tickets, etc. and the list goes on. This works out to less than $4/hour per child of professional instruction and experience, including performance opportunities.
Any middle school of high school students who play a musical instrument will be able participate free of charge.
Rehearsals for the first performance will run from Jan.9 to April 10 on Wednesday evenings from 6 to 6:55 p.m. The first tentative performance date is April 12, 2013.
“There will likely be more performance opportunities should the group wish to have them,” Wilson stated.
And anyone who would want to take part or to volunteer (in any capacity) is more than welcome to contact Wilson by email at sookeyouthshowchoir@gmail.com by Dec. 31.