The Flin Flon Community Choir's next musical is moving ahead. The choir will hold a three-day audition early next week for roles in its upcoming production of Annie.
The choir will hold auditions for different roles Nov. 1, 2 and 3 for lead and ensemble roles in the musical, which will be performed in Flin Flon in late spring 2025. Auditions for children’s roles will take place Nov. 2, with callbacks coming the next day for children and adults.
The show will be the choir’s first full-scale musical production since 2023’s showing of Mary Poppins, which featured almost exclusively local talent with some assistance from out-of-town musicians. The production of Annie will also be the first musical produced by Angela Ishaka, the new director of the choir who took over from long-time choir leader Crystal Kolt last year.
The cast for the show features many young performers, particularly Annie, who is portrayed as being 11 years old during the events of the show. Hosting a production of Annie requires a large and talented cast of children.
The musical itself, written by Martin Charnin and Charles Strouse and based on the comic strip Little Orphan Annie, first opened on Broadway in 1977. Since then, it has been produced thousands of times around the world, including during several on-and-off-Broadway revivals, cross-American tours, sequels and films. The role of the spunky orphan Annie has launched careers for young singers and actors alike, while songs like “Tomorrow” and “It’s the Hard Knock Life” have become standard parts of the great American songbook. The New York Times estimates Annie is performed as many as 900 times a year throughout the U.S.
The choir hosts a major musical performance every two years, with the pandemic cancelling the planned 2021 show. Other productions include Mamma Mia, Chicago, Grease, The Phantom of the Opera, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat and several others, including the original work Bombertown - while no announcement has yet been made, a remake of Bombertown may be scheduled to be the choir’s 2027 show, pending any changes.
Announcements for who got which part are expected to come in the weeks following auditions.
Anyone interested in booking audition slots can do so by contacting Natalie Milligan at [email protected] or Courtney Lycan at [email protected]. People hoping to set up auditions are asked to provide the name and age of anyone wanting to take part. Anyone interested in working behind the scenes with the coming musical can contact Lycan or message Alain Lachapelle at [email protected].
