The Talentz, one of Kent’s leading musical theatre companies, has opened auditions to everyone in the Tunbridge Wells area aged 4-21 years old for their pantomime, Dick Whittington.
Taking place on Saturday 3 September and Sunday 4 September at EM Forster Theatre in Tonbridge, anyone interested in auditioning needs to book a slot by emailing debbie@thetalentz.com.
There are dance troupe auditions for Babes (4-8 years) 2:15-3pm, Intermediates (9-13 years) 3:15-4pm and Seniors (14-21 years) 4:30-5:45pm. Ensemble workshop auditions take place 3-4pm or 4:30-5:30pm. The Principal auditions take place on the Sunday between 10am-5pm and potential performers need to bring a prepared song with sheet music for the Musical Director. Scripts will also be sent in advance of auditions.
The Talentz acknowledge that rehearsing for a pantomime in the festive season can be a challenge for performers and parents/carers alike. For this reason they rigidly stick to a Sunday only rehearsal programme and perform in January to enable families to be together over the Christmas period. Uniquely, The Talentz pantomime only uses youth performers aged 4-21 years, giving young people unique opportunities to take major roles to grow and develop their life skills, creativity and character, using performance, singing, dancing and acting.
Debbie King, Founder, comments; “I am so delighted to be bringing Dick Whittington to the beautiful EM Forster Theatre in January 2023. What makes The Talentz performance so unusual is that we have a professional creative team providing expertise to our cast. From Olivia Zacharia, our hugely talented Musical Director to Jamie Rickers, our Assistant Director and one of our Patrons, known as the face of Nickelodeon, Jamie has also worked on many pantomimes across the country as well as multiple shows for Children’s television.
I love that the entire ensemble, including principals, gives the stage over to emerging talent through our brilliant youth performers. We believe passionately in opening these opportunities up to ALL young people and so the cast do not have to be members of The Talentz, anyone can audition. We know how busy young people can be so we only rehearse on a Sunday each week and each group attends for their specific sessions, no need for hanging around when they are not needed which is great for them (and parent or carer taxi services!)”
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About The Talentz….
Founded by Debbie King in 2009, The Talentz is an award winning musical theatre company (National Youth Arts (International and many different awards for shows, runners up for muddy stilettos 2019 as a company)
Specialists in the teaching, training and development of children and young adults in the skills and attributes of the performing arts. The Talentz gives students unique opportunities to grow and develop their life skills, creativity and character, using performance, singing, dancing and acting. All of the Talentz productions are accompanied by professional live musicians, giving the students the amazing opportunity. Our students have gone onto- Mountview, ArtsEd, Urdang, Bird, Rose Bruford and many other top musical theatre and Drama schools.
Debbie is passionate about singing and music education, training at the London School for Musical Theatre, Maurice Lane Academy of Musical Theatre and Royal Schools of Music.
After performing professionally, Debbie pursued a career in education, receiving Advanced Kindermusic training from Colourstrings and subsequently spending 15 years as Head of Music and Drama at Warlingham Park School where she led the school to be the first platinum Sing Up School in Surrey and the first few in the country. In 2015, Debbie received the Young Voices Star Teacher Award for her committed work with the largest school choir concerts in the world. She was a lead tutor for the Glyndebourne Sing Up Newhaven project and is an ambassador teacher for the National Youth Theatre.
Debbie loves directing and co-directing musicals and producing an annual musical at the world’s largest arts festival- the Edinburgh Fringe.
During lockdown Debbie and a team of volunteers started the first Tunbridge Wells Fringe Festival, which doubled in size in its second year 2022.