The Hot Springs Children's Dance Theatre Company will hold auditions this month for their long-awaited performance of "Cinderella" scheduled for this spring.
"There are 25 cast members that will be cast, and the auditions are Feb. 12, starting at 9 a.m. that day and running all day long depending on the age groups," Edmond Cooper, artistic director and president of the company, said.
Auditions will be held at 216 Garrison Road. The performances will be held in May.
Cooper said they are looking for child performers between the ages of 5 and 18 with of "all levels of skill."
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"We kind of give them an introduction to dance," Cooper said, "The only requirement is you have to be signed up for a dance class somewhere. You have to be taking ballet somewhere. Other than that, there's no requirements."
He said they will put the children in roles according to their skill level, so "it's a great opportunity to get exposed to the arts and to see if you're really interested in anything to do with ballet, or classical dance, or music for young people in Hot Springs."
For the 25 cast members who make it into the ballet, Cooper said "we practice on Saturdays, all day long," and then "we have rehearsals at nighttime for some of the harder roles."
Cooper said the roles of Cinderella, her stepmother and her stepsisters will be performed by adults who are professionals. He said that, among other reasons, this is so the students get to work with, and learn from, pros.
"The lead roles are really hard and really complicated, so usually what I do for the lead parts, I go get professionals who can do it as, so when the kids are in the show, like you're 12 years old and you've never seen someone do it the way it's supposed to be done, it's really inspiring to the kids, because it's not modified at all, it's a challenging as it was originally," he said.
"So for that reason, I always bring in professionals for the lead roles for the most part, so it gives the audience an incredible performance, because you see the kids, local students, trying and working towards what they are trying to achieve, and you also have this great, great performance by these artists who can do it the way it's supposed to be."
Cooper said they will be doing the traditional version of "Cinderella."
"That's a real treat because a lot of people don't choose the actual score because they tend to get expensive, but we like to do it the way it's supposed to be done, so we actually use the original music from the actual ballet from the original score and the original storyline, so it's pretty much the historical, traditional performance, adapted for local skill levels," he said.
"For historical reasons, and so that we pass on the traditional version, we try to stay as close to that production as we can," Cooper said. "We try to stay as close to the original performance or the original creation as possible, so the kids can get a historical experience."
Originally set for 2020, COVID-19 caused the show to be delayed to 2022.
This is the second time the company has done "Cinderella," which was previously performed in 2015. Cooper said they have a list of ballets they perform in a loop, and they returned to this one in 2020, but the pandemic halted their plans.
"We were two months into rehearsal when we had to shut down for the pandemic, so now we're going to breathe new life into the production," Cooper said, noting the 2020 cast was about twice the size he intends to cast this time.
Cooper said a number of students from the aborted 2020 performance will return for this season.
"There are a skeleton crew of those people that are still here that were cast in that production that will be recast in this production," he said.