Munchkin Nora (center)
At seven years old, Nora McIntyre is one of the youngest member of the cast of The Wizard of Oz. She plays the part of a munchkin and while she looks quite young, she always seems to know what is expected of her and where she needs to be. Her mom, Kimberly, explains, “Nora has always been our independent child. She is usually the one that takes initiative and is a real go-getter. I think that’s what makes theater a good fit for her. Auditioning was completely her idea.”
But, her story, like many others, didn’t start here. She auditioned last December for The Secret Garden and was disappointed to not make it. Kimberly recalls, “She was very young and didn’t understand how the whole process worked at that time.”
A story Nora wrote about getting the call
But she persevered and tried out again. Kimberly remembers the day Nora found out she made the cast. “We happened to be grocery shopping that afternoon, and I had already set her up to be disappointed that she might not get a call because it was already after 12:00 noon. We were in the canned fruit and soup aisle when she got the call. When she got off the phone, she was jumping up and down in the middle of the aisles and calling all of our relatives. To say she was excited would probably be an understatement!”
Nora will tell you herself how excited she is to be in this production. When asked what she likes best, she says, “I like being myself and being a munchkin and getting all creative and acting. It amazes me by seeing the characters and the action and making the people that are doing it come to life.” She says she particularly likes the costumes and might want to work on costume crew when she’s old enough.
As for Kimberly and her husband, Jason, they say that even though they were both new to theatre, the experience has been enlightening and positive. And when they got to see Nora on opening weekend, they were proud to see her self-confidence translate onto the stage. Kimberly says, “She appeared so comfortable and self-assured; as if she had done that her whole life rather than being her first show. She fit right into the cast and didn’t appear to be a “newbie” to the entire production. I know that we look forward to seeing her on stage again.”
Looking back on Nora’s experience, Kimberly reflects, “”It means a lot to our family because now that Nora has found theater at DreamWrights both of our children have found something that they are very passionate about. Nora has been very responsible in remembering her materials for rehearsals. She would practice and read her script on her own in her room. She also took a lot of responsibility for making sure that her schoolwork was still done even with all the late rehearsals. She never argued about any rehearsals and was as excited to go to the final rehearsals as she was the first. I know that we felt extremely busy, but it was worth it to see how motivated Nora was during the entire process.”
Nora McIntyre attends second grade at Red Lion’s Larry J. Macaluso Elementary School. In 2014, when she became old enough, she started attending summer camps at DreamWrights. Her first camp was The Wide Mouthed Frog . She also attended Disney KIDS production camps: The Jungle Book and 101 Dalmatians. She absolutely loved all the camps and couldn’t wait to be old enough to try out for a big production. Nora plans on trying out again for Babe, the Sheep-Pig. But before that, you can see Nora on stage in The Wizard of Oz this final weekend.
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