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Musical revue opens new Coquitlam school theatre

You can forgive Kiyomi Asano for feeling a bit emotional this week.
audition
The leads in Audition are Jason Amit (in front) and (in back) Kiyomi Asano, Senen De Las Llagas, Vanessa Porretti and Kallista Jones.

You can forgive Kiyomi Asano for feeling a bit emotional this week.

Not only is the Centennial secondary student going to see her fellow Musical Theatre 11/12 debut her new show, Audition: The Musical, this week, they’ll also perform it in the Coquitlam school’s new theatre — a professional venue that opened last September.

“We’re calling it ‘Our Golden Grand Opening,’” said drama teacher and director Lisa Boddez, who guided her past Writing 12 student through the scriptwriting and songwriting last year.

The school bought the licensing rights to the Off-Broadway play but Asano wanted to put her own touches to it to pay tribute to their new digs, turning it into a full-length, two-act musical revue for the 45 cast and crew.

At the start of the new academic year, Boddez picked the leads — Senen De Las Llagas and Vanessa Porretti (both stars in last year’s Catch Me If You Can) as well as Jason Amit and Kallista Jones — plus Asano who will portray Olivia, the daughter of the principal who’s threatening to cut the school’s theatre program.

Her musical is peppered with Broadway tunes “that everyone can sing along to,” said Asano, 17, who plans to attend Sheridan College this fall.

Boddez said Asano’s work is the perfect fit for the new school: She and music director Carole Baker were hoping to put on a more “scaled-back” production to ease into the new facility “and I think we made a good decision,” Boddez said. “We need time to learn this theatre because there’s a lot of professional equipment.”

She added, “It’s going to be a learning curve for us and it’ll take a couple of years before we finally feel comfortable in our new home.”

• Audition: The Musical runs Jan. 18 to 20 at 7:30 p.m. at Centennial secondary school (570 Poirier St.). Tickets at $16/$13 are available via centtheatre.com

jcleugh@tricitynews.com