As the theater season has come to a fresh start this school year, roles are in the process of being picked. While most auditions still need to happen, Hayden De La Garza knows what one of his roles will be: dance captain. This is an important job, as it helps the rest of the actors learn the dances and choreography of the entire play, along with helping select those who perform the best.
“This year, we are going to be teaching everybody a combination dance and they will learn it for about 30 minutes to 45 minutes and then we’ll take small groups and they’ll come into a big space, then they’ll perform and we’ll look at how everybody did, write everybody’s name down and figure out who we’d liked,” said De La Garza.
While being selected as dance captain isn’t something that De La Garza had to audition for, he is still waiting to audition for his role in the play, which takes a lot of preparation and hard work.
“So auditioning for a musical here at Wylie, about three weeks to a month before the audition, you are given specific tracks and sheet music to learn to audition for specific roles that you want,” said De La Garza (12).
This means that over the time of learning everything, nerves will start to rise, especially as it gets closer to audition time. In order to help the audition process go smoother, De La Garza takes this and looks at it with a positive mindset.
“I would like to add to that that being nervous also can be a good thing. Like preparing for so long and wanting to go and like, have fun and do it can make you nervous, and it definitely does, but in my personal experience, auditioning how many times I have, I’ve kind of been able to alleviate that stress,” said De La Garza.
Having been doing this for many years, De La Garza is able to enjoy everything more and he is better able to manage things outside of theater.
“I feel like for me and my close friends, we’ve been able to just kind of put aside the stress while we’re having fun and then still being able to be productive and doing schoolwork and balancing jobs and friends and all of that,” said De La Garza.
All of what De La Garza has learned has come with practice, experience, and most importantly, a love for what you do, and De La Garza has just that.