Greatwood girl with ‘big’ voice star of national tour
Sarah McKinley Austin, 9, of Greatwood stars in the national tour of “Matilda the Musical,” a Tony Award-winning Broadway show.
“Traveling is very nice, actually,” the pint-sized actress said by phone following a recent performance in Rochester, New York. “I get to see the world. I love airports. I feel like they’re home.”
Many of her hometown fans aren’t surprised by Austin’s quick shot to the top.
In fact, it’s her second national tour, after playing the smaller role of Ivanka in last year’s cross-country presentation of “Once,” the 2012 Tony winner for best musical.
Two summers ago, the Bess Campbell Elementary School student was discovered when she portrayed Cosette in the Sunday, Aug. 3 performance of Fort Bend Theatre’s production of “Les Misérables” at the Stafford Centre.
“I cast her,” said Tarra McCain,
who is the theater’s executive artistic director. “She was exceptionally talented. She stole the audience’s heart, and the rest is history.”
As Young Cosette, Austin sang the tear-jerking “Castle on a Cloud.”
“It was a little nervewracking,” Austin recalled. “That song has a lot of low notes, so low you can hardly reach them.”
She is the daughter of two professional musicians and teachers.
Her dad, Mark Austin, is an instructor at James Bowie Elementary School in Rosenberg and her mom, Susannah Austin teaches at Campbell.
“We recognized her talent very early on,” said her mother, adding that someone who was familiar with professional Broadway theater heard her performance in “Les Misérables” and recommended that she meet Nancy Carson, a talent agent in New York City.
The next month, the budding young actress flew to the Big Apple to successfully audition for Carson.
“I never knew my agent would take me this far,” said the youngster, who rotates in the musical’s starring role with two other actresses, Savannah Grace Elmer of Orlando, Florida, and Lily Brooks O’Briant from Memphis, Tennessee.
Austin debuted in “Matilda the Musical” on Jan. 9 at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.
“I have been wanting to do this for such a long time,” she said.
Her traveling companion on the tour is her mother’s sister, Emily Stover, a retired attorney whose home is in Nantucket, Massachusetts.
“Typically, we travel once a week, on Mondays,” Austin said.
Upcoming engagements include performances in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania through June 12 and Boston, Massachusetts from June 14-26.
When the tour ends, said Austin, “I think I would like to stop for a few months, then kick it off again.”
Austin attends academic classes with other children in the show and rehearses weekly with music, dance and diction teachers.
“I also go to museums and read my books and play my violin,” said Austin. “Sometimes, I travel with my ukulele.” The same week that Austin appeared two years ago in “Les Misérables” at the Stafford Centre she attended the Stagecoach musical theater camp at Cast Theatrical Company in Rosenberg, playing Ursula in “The Little Mermaid Jr.”
Its director, Eden Mann Rule of Fairchilds, said, “She was just amazing. She opened her mouth and this big voice came out of this little bitty, tiny body. She was a little shy at first, but she same out of her shell by the end of the week.”