Julia Hardy
Arts, Entertainment & Technology Editor
When junior Megan Mistretta was forced to go to theater camp one summer at The Studio, a performing arts coach in town, she was not a happy camper. “We were performing “The Lion King” but I refused to sing so they cast me as a hyena,” she said.
Yet that first day of camp was the beginning of a long acting career that would take her performing across the country, often through the child and teen acting company Random Farms Kids’ Theater. “Getting to play Annie in the Random Farms production of “Annie Jr.” was an experience I’ll never forget,” she said. “Going on the national tour of the “Wizard of Oz” was a close second since we performed at landmarks like Madison Square Garden.”
In addition to these roles, she was a lead in the Broadway Workshop production of “Secret Garden” and a spokesperson for X Out by Proactive.
Megan is one of a number of New Canaan students who have taken their love for acting outside the town lines. Junior Isabel Lawrence has performed lead roles for organizations such as Music Theatre of Connecticut and Nickelodeon. Her works range from the mysterious Diana Ladris in a trailer for the book “Plague” by Michael
Grant to the iconic Dora in Dora the Explorer Live! Pirate Adventure. “Most recently I did a commercial for Bratz dolls on Nickelodeon and it’s my favorite work,” she said.
Isabel has found benefits to acting at such a high caliber. “Acting outside of school has a lot of flexibility,” Isabel said. “There are more projects that I can choose to be involved with and each one has new casting directors and new competition to meet.”
Megan also sees benefits from meeting new people. “I’ve made really strong connections to people in the industry through acting outside of school.”
For junior Sydney Trager, having strong connections was the very reason she landed the role of “Sydney” on the 2012 SyFy channel horror film Winged Terror. “I do a lot of acting classes in New York to improve my ability,” she said. “I became connected to someone directing the film from those classes.”
After filming in New Orleans for three days, Sydney found that movie production was not all that she had expected. “I was surprised at how quickly filming happened. I had been so nervous I’d get my lines wrong or wouldn’t act well, but they really only took one or two shots for each scene.”
Nonetheless, preparing for each scene was not quickly accomplished. “We had to wake up at four in the morning each day and I’d end up sitting either in my trailer or in the makeup and wardrobe trailer for about an hour before shooting,” she said.
Megan has also found time to be an obstacle with acting. “Don’t get me wrong, school plays take a lot of time to rehearse. But when I act outside of school, we’re rehearsing four hours everyday by the final week before the show,” she said. “I’m always doing homework in the car.”
According to President of Math and English Consulting Michael Marlowe, whose daughter Rebecca is on the National Tour of “Billy Elliot” and son Noah stars in “Mary Poppins” on Broadway, the struggle to balance out of school acting with education is a top concern for the parents of actors. “I’m always worried about my daughter’s schooling because with the national tour it’s been three years since she’s stepped into a classroom,” he said. “She has to learn from tutors and online while on the road.”
Nonetheless, Mr. Marlowe wouldn’t let that concern get in the way of his daughter’s
acting opportunities. “My proudest moment for my daughter was when we learned she had the role in ‘Billy Elliot’,” he said. “I didn’t know kids from Rockland County could be in these things.”
One of the biggest differences the actresses have found between acting in and out of school is the audition process. “Auditioning is a little different than at the high school since you also need a resume and a head shot,” Megan said. “My manager gets me my auditions, but if I didn’t have one I would need to do a lot of research about each role.”
Isabel agreed that her agency helps to simplify the audition process. “The agency scouts out the job for me, like if I fit the age, look and ethnicity requirements,” she said.
Besides auditioning, another big difference is in the people in theater companies. “In school productions, it’s a teen cast and one director, but otherwise you’re working with a lot more adults and different directors that each provide a different perspective,” Megan said.
Although she once did a fall play, Sydney has found that the constant changes in the cast are the main attraction for acting outside of school. “One of my favorite parts of acting is going to the city to meet new people and taking my acting to a higher level in a place where I’ve seen many of my peers become successful,” she said. “That’s something that I can’t get in school.”
Ultimately, this is only the beginning of Isabel’s acting journey. “I would love to work more on TV, especially in TV shows,” she said. “Last year I was one of the final three girls for Nickelodeon in New York, so I’ve been close!”
Megan has similar goals. “I would love to be on Broadway,” she said. “Also having a TV show where I could sing and act would be really cool.”
