Awaiting acceptance, long rehearsals, balancing vocal abilities, and navigating stage fright. For senior George Minister, this is all too familiar.

“I auditioned for my first musical when I was in fourth grade,” Minister said. “I always loved to sing and I always loved entertaining and putting on shows… it’s something that I really enjoyed doing and I love it and it’s something I was good at so the combination of those things, you keep acting, I was in plays when I was younger, I did musicals, I did all these things locally so moving here a couple years ago and continuing doing that in a great program, I found that great.”

Unlike Minister, senior Maddie Marino is new to the field of acting, but performance has been in her blood early on.

“I honestly never really cared for acting. I was always just a singer. I liked to sing, and it really wasn’t until [Wando’s] “Mamma Mia,” last year, where I was kind of like ‘oh dancing, singing, and acting, it’s a fun combination, you don’t have to just sing or just dance’… it was a good realization of doing all three especially surrounded by all your friends,” Marino said.

In addition to building community through performance, Minister and Marino are in a relationship and have even been casted as the lead couple in “Grease.”

Their friend, junior Megan Carrafiello, is also a cast member. She recalls the dedication the role requires.

“There’s two shows. This year we’re doing “Grease” and “Crazy for You”… a lot of us worked really hard. Everybody’s putting in a lot of effort… and it’s so physically demanding. You’re constantly lifting people up, you have to carry your stuff, it’s very much a lot of dancing… it’s the behind the scenes stuff and the physical challenge of it all because you want people to be like ‘that’s easy,” Carrafiello said.

Carrafiello’s entry into the world of performance began up near the Big Apple. Being from New Jersey, she found herself next to the center of the theater.

“It was just something that really piqued my interest and something that I really wanted to try,” Carrafiello said.

Carrafiello, Marino, and Minister have all taken the next step    in their careers joining the local company Charleston Academy of Musical Theater. With the stress of the shows on their shoulders, the actors feel the pressure while on stage in front of their audience.

“You have to act like you’re fine while hyperventilating like nothing happened,” Marino said. “It’s not just singing, there’s so much more you have to think about, like breath support.”

Minister recalls a moment in their most recent show, “Grease”, when he had to do strenuous work on the stage.

“Our whole big number right now is the hand jive in ‘Grease’ and it’s like five minutes of continuous intense dancing [with] cardio and choreo. I’m lifting up this girl, pretty much throwing her above my head, while she does a split and I run with her forward on stage after four or five minutes of intense cardio,” Minister said.

Over the course of their lives, the three have realized how much more there is to putting on a production than meets the eye. The actors accredit their time in the Wando Chorus for their endless

success in performance.

“All three of us are singers first,” Minister said. “I think chorus builds a lot of foundation in our knowledge of music and how to find your notes and that translates…It’s a really important skill. For a lot of people there are skills that they have for their actors first, and their dancers first, and their singers first and I think having the skill set of singing takes longer. Same with dancing, you have to have that technical skill to be able to perform at a level that people expect.”

“It’s so rewarding seeing everything come together,” Carrafiello said. “It’s a fun thing to [get] to work with everybody and the people are just really fun to be around..it gives you a really good bond.”

Through their work, the three are excited to continue their journey through the world of entertainment and the bonds they make with others.

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Olivia Martin

Senior George Minister plays the lead in his theater’s production of ‘Grease’. ”You have to have that technical skill to be able to perform at a level that people expect,” Minister said.