Last December, auditions for our school musical “The Wonderful Wizzz Of Oz” were held in the school. Every TY student was auditioned for a part in the show. Ms.Hayes and Ms.Hall were holding the auditions. We all had to sing a song of our choice. We hired a choreographer to help with dance auditions. Once the auditions were over, we had to wait for Ms.Hayes to decide what people were suitable for each part.
We were all very anxious while waiting for Ms Hayes to announce who had got the parts. When the parts were handed out we were all very eager to get started. I got the part of Dorothy, Darragh Burke was given the part of the Tinman, Darragh Cusse secured the part of the Lion, Robert O’Donnell shared the part of the Scarecrow with Alan Peters and Darragh McGrath obtained the part of The Wiz. The parts of the the two good witches were given to Maeve O’Gorman and Ciara O’Connell and the part of the evil witch was given to Lianne Malone. Everyone was delighted wuth their parts and were very eager to get going once Ms.Hayes handed out the scripts.
We started dance rehearsals straight away. These were very tiring but brilliant and great fun. Miriam Ball was our choreographer. She made us all work very hard to get the dances correct and stage-ready. Ms.Hall started rehearsing all the songs with us, both solo and chorus songs. This was hard work and it took a great deal of effort but Ms.Hall was very patient and made us work to our full potential. Ms.Hayes put a lot of effort into our acting rehearsals. And the people who had main parts often had to stay after school to practice.
The stage was built in our new sports hall about a week before we were going on stage. We were able to rehearse on the stage and get used to how much space we had for the dances. We didn’t have much time to get nervous as Ms.Hayes kept us all very busy. The first matinee show we did was for primary schools. We were all very nervous doing it but it was great fun when the day arrived. The next day we did the show for our own school and T.Y students from other schools. This was the show we were all most anxious about as these were our fellow peers and we were afraid they would judge us but they received it very well.
We were all very excited and nervous about the night shows. A lot of our parents and family were going to be at these shows so we felt that we had to perform to our full potential at all times. This show was a brilliant experience and one which I think every student who took part in it would like to do again.
by Joanne Kennedy
