The cast of ‘Anything Goes’ had special guests in the audience over the course of the weekend of performances. They were being adjudicated by the Nebraska Theatre Academy. From these performances, the entire cast was named as “Outstanding Musical Theater Production.” Lauren Watson and Ryan McConachie won outstanding actors in a leading role, Natalie Delaney won outstanding achievement in stage management, and Lauren Watson is a national Jimmy Award Finalist.
These students went on to submit a callback for the chance to advance further into the competition to be chosen to perform on the Jimmy Awards stage in New York City.
Ryan McConachie was selected for his role as Billy Crocker, one of the male leads. “We then had to film two audition videos; they both had to include a 32-bar cut of a song that you will sing, one of them must be from the show you were a part of, but the other one could be from any show. And then we uploaded them along with our acting resumes.” McConachie says. “Then after a while, three of us got an email letting us know we had been selected for a callback, where we would show up with one or both of our musical cuts prepared, and then they would have a dance call where we learned a dance the day of and audition that dance, and that would be the whole callback experience.”
Hannah Sempek was also called back for her role as Erma Latour, one of the supporting female characters.
“If you make it to the live audition, you choose one of those songs from your initial audition to perform for a panel of judges. I was really nervous for it, but there were actually only two judges and a pianist in this big room. It was really nice that the audition wasn’t in front of everyone else that was called back,” Sempek said. “After the vocal audition, there was a dance call. We did a dance to a song from ‘Hairspray’ and learned it in like 20 minutes. It was really easy, but the challenge was trying to memorize it so quickly. After the audition, I had to go home and reconnect with nature. It was a lot of sitting and waiting around for your name to be called, but I feel super lucky that I had someone there to hang out with me while we had so much down time,” Sempek said.
Lauren Watson was selected for her role as Reno Sweeney, the female lead.
“I was a bit familiar with the process, having done it the year before. It was a bit nerve wracking, the callbacks, there were like 60 other people in the room with you when you danced and then you had to sing two challenging songs in front of professionals. I sang ‘Easy as Life’ from ‘Aida’ and ‘Anything Goes’ from ‘Anything Goes.’” Watson said. “I honesty thought I biffed the audition. My voice cracked on the big belting of ‘Easy as Life’ and I was so defeated and devastated but they put trust in me so I was able to become a finalist to go.”
Watson advanced the furthest out of the three and is in the running to advance to the Jimmy Awards stage in New York.
“I found out during school. I was 4th block and I got an email saying “Congratulations” I quickly drove home to tell my mom. It’s still unreal that I have the chance to go to New York and perform in the Tony week. And it was helpful having Hannah with me during callbacks, definitely calmed my nerves.”
The cast of Anything Goes will perform a song at the Orpheum on May 31 and Lauren Watson will find out if she will be one of the two Nebraska representatives.
