Lily Hickey, theater and performance senior, was featured on Broadway World in a virtual showcase.
Hickey said she came across the opportunity to be part of “The College Showcase Must Go On (Virtually!)” earlier this year.
“I have been submitting my video reals, headshots, resumes, et cetera to different feeders across the countries basically for the last four months, maybe even longer,” Hickey said. “I’ve been submitting it to other places as well, just trying to prepare for post-graduation life, and I stumbled across this opportunity.
Hickey first performed the song “Over The Rainbow” for the virtual showcase and said she chose this song because of her love for Judy Garland as well as the circumstances surrounding the time when the video was filmed.
“I have always loved “Over The Rainbow,” she said. “I went to my voice lesson and told my voice coach that I really needed to sing that song, and she said we should film it, so we did.”
Her second song of choice was “The Girl Who Drove Away,” and said it is one of her classic go-to songs.
“It’s not super well known, but it’s from this musical that used to be called “The Unauthorized Biography of Samantha Brown” but is now called ‘The Mad Ones,’” Hickey said. “I have been singing that song since sophomore year of college and is just another song that I love to sing.”
Hickey said that she was excited about the opportunity to be showcased on such a well-known website. Her family and friends were very excited for her, she said.
“I think it is really cool. They are a very reputable company, so it is very neat to see myself on their website,” Hickey said. “They thought it was super cool as well. No one in my immediate family is directly involved with the theater community, but they are familiar with websites such as this, so they thought it was a really cool opportunity and were very supportive.”
David Herendeen, director of opera and music theater, said Hickey is a unique individual and is very good at putting herself out there, which he says is vital in the performance industry.
“Lily has a certain ferocity in that willowy, cheerful, intellectual acting way. She’ll put herself out there to find opportunity, and that is how people build their career,” Herendeen said. “That quality is what works, and the accuracy of defining who she is in those tapes is going to be what makes someone say that they need her. This is not how you get cast in a show, this is how you create curiosity about you. She is doing the things she needs to do to stand out.”
Hickey said she is grateful for this opportunity at exposure and said she thinks the chance to have an outlet like this is a very good thing to have in the uncertain times the world is currently in.
“It’s a super cool opportunity that they are having right now because for a lot of us seniors, we’ve had a lot of things cancelled,” Hickey said. “It is such a great opportunity for people to get their art out there which I think we need now more than ever. People need human connection in art, so I think all of these companies doing things like this are very appreciated.”
Hickey’s performance can be watched here, on the Broadway World website.
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