Ashley Jones, 15 years old, has been attending Stagelight Performing Arts since 2015 and has taken a variety of Musical Theatre, Acting, Improv, and dance classes. She is currently a sophomore at El Dorado High School and was recently cast in the theatre department’s play, The Laramie Project. We asked her all about her role in this show:
SPA: Tell us a little about the play.
AJ: The Laramie Project is a dramatic play about the aftermath of the brutal beating of Matthew Shepard, a gay college student in Laramie Wyoming.
SPA: What role are you playing? How are you like your character, and how are you different?
AJ: I play five different roles. Two of the main ones are Amanda Gronich, one of the members of the company who wrote the play, and Marge Murray, the mother of the police officer that finds Matthew. I am most like Amanda in that she enjoys the theatre but doesn’t know how to tackle this new thing. I am not like Marge really because I don’t know what it is like to be a mother.
SPA: Did you do anything specific to prepare for this role?
AJ: I watched multiple documentaries on what happened in Laramie and looked up my characters because they were real people who were affected by this.
SPA: How have your classes at Stagelight helped you prepare for this role?
AJ: My acting for camera class has helped me the most to prepare for this role. The cold reading skills for the audition and rehearsals was so important.
Andrew Atondo, an 8 year old Stagelighter, began starring on YouTube when he was just 3 years old. Andrew has been featured in, filmed, or has co-written over 200 episodes over the years. And with almost half a million subscribers on his channel “Andrew’s Toy Channel,” his YouTube work keeps him pretty busy! We caught up with Andrew to ask him more about this exciting work he does.