Valley girl lands Broadway role

WASILLA — As Jessica Rentz watched Les Misérables performed during a theater camp in August, one thought ran rampant in her mind as young Cosette sang: that should be my sister, Charly.

Charly Rentz, a fifth-grade student at Finger Lake, is one of four Alaska girls and the only kid from the Mat-Su Valley to obtain a role in the upcoming Broadway show, Les Mis, which opens next Friday in the Atwood Concert Hall at the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts. There will be 13 performances from Oct. 17 to 26, in which Rentz will play the role of young Cosette. In addition to singing her solo number, “Castle on a Cloud,” Rentz will participate as a member of the ensemble throughout the remainder of the play.

“She will be worth her weight in gold for this role,” said Sonja Babcock, of Sonja’s Studio of Dance in Wasilla.

While the majority of the casting occurred in Los Angeles through Plan B Entertainment, Director Andy Ferrara decided he wanted to cast locally for Cosette and Eponine, to give budding, young, Alaskan actresses an opportunity to perform onstage with a professional cast.

“This just kinda goes up one more level,” said Anchorage Concert Association Executive Director Jason Hodges.

Hodges helped with the auditioning process in Anchorage and keyed in on Rentz right away.

“Clearly, she had some great stage presence, and we could see from her resume that she had the experience,” he said.

The 56 girls who auditioned were required to sing 16 bars of a song other than “Castle on a Cloud,” and some were asked to sing another song if they had one prepared. Many of the girls had excellent voices, Hodges said, but not every actress — or actor — can look the part. Sometimes, a director just has to say, “It won’t make sense to have you in revolutionary France,” he said.

But Rentz made the cut.

According to her mother Kelly, Charly didn’t think she would get the part, but it seems “mother knows best.”

“She’s very tough on herself, but she’s a perfectionist,” Kelly said, in explanation of her daughter’s doubts.

Although Charly’s role as Pollyanna at the Valley Performing Arts Center this spring probably went a long way with the casting directors — she had about 70 percent of the lines in the play, her mother said — she wouldn’t even have thought to mention it if her older sister hadn’t created a resume for the Broadway workshop she attended herself this summer. Having an older sister who is theatrically inclined has certainly fed Charly’s enthusiasm for her art, her mother said.

“I think at first it was a little overwhelming, but I think now she just really enjoys the whole process (of acting),” Kelly said. “Not just the performing but the practices and the rehearsals and all of that.”

Charly is still rather new to the musical scene. She didn’t even start voice lessons until this fall — she got the tip for the audition from her teacher, Alaska Children’s Choir Director Janet Stotts, her mother said — and she just started musical theater and jazz dance classes at Sonja’s this summer.

Yet stage fright is not a struggle for the 10-year-old actress.

“I’m a nervous wreck, (but) she’s very confident,” Kelly said. “I would’ve been shakin’ in my shoes at that age.”

Not Charly, though.

“She’s very coachable,” Stotts said of her student. “She’s one that listens and one that responds right away, and she doesn’t take things personally. She’s got a great future ahead of her.”

Charly’s career as an actress isn’t set in stone, her mother said — she also plays the trumpet, so who knows where that could lead — but Kelly thinks it’s likely Charly will pursue acting at the professional level when she’s older, and her 15-year-old sister will, too. Any concerns about her daughters’ ability to thrive financially in such a field are minimal, she said, as she trusts their understanding of the advice they received from Broadway actor James Donegan, who first got a college degree in accounting.

“It wasn’t until I made a living as an actor that I quit my day job,” Kelly paraphrased Donegan’s counsel.

Rehearsal with the young actresses begins Monday, when the Los Angeles cast and crew arrive in Anchorage. Prior to their arrival, the girls will continue to work with Music Machine teacher Janet Carr-Campbell to rehearse for the role.

Young thespians Hadley Ryan Earl, Parker Kinley, and Megan Nelson of Anchorage also were cast in the roles of Cosette and Eponine. Two people were cast in each role and when Ferrara and Plan B arrive in Alaska on Monday Charly and the other young actors will learn which days they perform.

To purchase tickets for Les Mis online, visit bit.ly/1siYPvV.

Contact Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.