Apple Tree auditions amaze and satisfy

Clare Strickland, Editorial Board|March 24, 2014

Senior Freddie Pim (right) reads with senior Stage Manager Dan St. Germain during his audition on March 13.

Auditions for the upcoming spring play, The Apple Tree, directed by English teacher Tom Alera provided students with a comfortable atmosphere as they sang and performed for a spot in the show.

“They [the students] come in and it’s one-on-one auditions which I really like because I can spend some time with the kids,” Alera said.

The Apple Tree is different from Alera’s past performances.

“This is a musical, which’ll be the first time for the spring play which will be nice. What’s really nice about it is it’s three different stories [within one show] and that’s pretty interesting in and of itself,” Alera said.

This show has intrigued students and drawn a lot of interest, though going into auditions students generally were not overly familiar with the story line.

“I did a little outside research, looked up YouTube videos and stuff like that…I don’t know it that well, but it sounds fun and really interesting,” senior Brittney Price said. “Each act is a different show. It’s different from what we’ve done before.”

“Thematically it has a lot of interesting points. The different stories I all find very interesting in their own way but when together they definitely bring together a much more clear and important message,” senior and Stage Manager for the production Dan St. Germain said.

For auditions, student-actors prepared for the show in different ways, but Alera did his best to make the actors as comfortable as possible.

“I don’t know anything about it [The Apple Tree], really. I always like to go into auditions not really knowing what I should be because if I look up roles I feel like I would try to copy them too much,” sophomore Henry Fournier said.

“I felt really comfortable because I’ve sang in front of him [Alera] before and he knows me…It was no stress so you went in, sang a song, did a reading, and that was it. And it was fun, it was fine. It wasn’t a lot of nerves which was nice,” junior Julia Baker said.

Auditions ran as smoothly as possible, but there were some minor glitches.

“We had some people who had to get out in a rush as well as people being sick and not being able to make it on their scheduled days so a lot of minor setbacks kind of add up to getting in the way of making sure things are done efficiently,” St. Germain said.

“I have an idea of what I’d like to see in the role… but then [some] person can knock down my vision and come in with something better, which is really nice,” Alera said.

The cast will work for six weeks until their performances on May 7, 8, 9, and 10.

Cast List for “The Apple Tree”

The Diary of Adam and Eve

Adam Evangelos Baltos

Eve Sarah Milnamow

Snake Scott Abrams

The Lady or the Tiger

Balladeer Chris Lang

Princess Barbara Julia Baker

Captain Sanjar Henry Fournier

King Arik John Arnold

Nadjira Brittany Price