AUBURN
One little girl dipped a toe over the end of the stage, seeming to test the audience like a cautious swimmer.
Another plucked at the side of her pink dress as her voice warbled with growing nerves. Some hid their faces behind sheet music. Some lost their voices, frightened to whispers as the people in the seats looked back at them.
Most would fail. There could be only one Annie.
Kelsy Ouellette, a 9-year-old from Bethel, dreamed of playing the precocious orphan girl and singing that “Tomorrow” song all alone on an empty stage.
So did Kelsey Gamble, 12, of Bethel, and Kate Audette, a 7-year-old from Auburn. Many others did, too.
In August, the Community Little Theatre plans to produce the popular musical. On June 2, they held auditions for the title role and six other orphans.
In all, 87 girls showed up.
They lined up in shiny buckled shoes, lacy dresses and pigtails. Others wore T-shirts, sneakers and jeans. There were 5-year-olds, and one girl who was 17.
So many came that volunteers nearly ran out of audition applications. They’d printed 100 of them.
The girls and their families filled the Great Falls School auditorium.
When the count reached 76, musical director Colin Britt hung his head. He had known there would be a lot.
For months, the theater company has been receiving phone calls from mothers and grandmothers asking for audition details. Some sent videotapes.
The demand was gratifying, Britt said. But with only seven parts to cast, there would be a lot of rejection.
‘A long night’
“Relax,” director Renee Davis told the girls, who were sitting nervously with friends and parents. “It’s going to be a long night.”
She told them that each girl would march up to the stage and sing a few lines from one of the musical’s songs. Davis and others would watch and listen to each one and take notes. She asked the audience to be quiet and refrain from applauding because it would make the process take even longer.
“I know exactly how each and every one of you are feeling,” Davis told the girls. “Twenty years ago, I was sitting where you are now.”
Davis had auditioned for the same part. She was not picked. Her sister was.
“Don’t feel bad,” she counseled. “Don’t feel angry. Don’t give up.”
There would be more shows. There were for her.
The first girl to audition walked up the stairs and and stood at the center of the stage. Behind her was the set for the company’s latest show, “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”
A sand dune and pyramids loomed over the girl.
“It’s the hard-knock life for us,” she sang. “Got no folks to speak of. So, it’s the hard-knock row we hoe.”
Her rhythm staggered a bit. Davis sang with her, mouthing the words to the girl as she finished her lines.
The room applauded.
“We can’t do this every time,” Davis said. “But we will clap for her. It’s hard to be first.”
Over the next two and a half hours, 85 girls marched up to the center of the stage for their moment. Two girls had left before their chance came.
Most sang “Tomorrow,” the simple melody that seemingly everyone knows.
When all had sung, about half of the girls were excused. Some cried.
Before the auditions began, Davis had pleaded with them not to challenge the cuts.
“Please don’t come up and ask us why,” she said. “The reason is that I can only accept seven.”
Eventually, Katelyn Bermudez, 13, of Auburn, was cast in the title role. Bermudez, who will enter St. Dominic Regional High School in the fall, is a veteran of the theater company. She was a member of the women’s chorus in the latest show.
All of the girls who auditioned had their moment in front of an audience.
Kate Audette, the 7-year-old from Auburn, sang her song on the stage with gusto. Her mother, father and stepmother watched from the seats. They videotaped her performance.
Minutes later, she fidgeted outside and grumbled because her supper would be late. Then she smiled.
“I’m a singer,” she said.
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