Brittany Gee-Moore and Julia Di Spirito aren't complaining about being up early on a summer morning.
They're used to it after nearly a month of rehearsing five days a week for Smile: The Musical, taking to the stage as part of the Vancouver International Fringe Festival starting Sept. 8.
Besides, the hard work involved in rehearsing isn't work at all, really.
"I prefer to be here than to be somewhere around the world, because I think it's a lot more fun," Brittany says with a grin.
The 14-year-old Burnaby resident, who's heading into Grade 10 at Stratford Hall, is out at Carousel Theatre's Granville Island studio on a Wednesday morning to rehearse for the Awkward Stage Productions musical.
The Broadway musical about a teenage beauty pageant was written by Marvin Hamlisch and Howard Ashman and, in this incarnation, is being staged by two young casts. Awkward Stage double-casts every production, with one junior cast and one senior cast. Last year, both casts were made up of high school students; this year, the senior cast includes post-secondary performers aged 18 to 25.
Brittany and Julia - a 15-year-old who's heading into Grade 10 at Burnaby North Secondary - are part of the musical's junior cast. Having a chance to work with the more experienced senior cast is something both young performers enjoy.
"The whole part of Awkward Stage Productions is a mentoring process," Julia explains. "It's really nice to see someone else play the same role as you. No double will play the role exactly the same, but it's nice to have someone else to share the experience with."
"We help each other with harmonies and choreography and the blocking," Brittany notes.
The musical is set in 1985 - "people who remember the '80s will be in heaven," Julia promises - and takes place at the California Young American Miss pageant in Santa Rosa.
All the teenage roles are played by live performers; the adults, however, will be portrayed by large foam puppets.
Julia is appearing as Robin, who was entered into the pageant by a friend.
"She is a really quiet person who is unsure of herself. She didn't even enter herself in the pageant. She really doesn't think she'll be able to win it," Julia explains.
She laughingly admits that Robin isn't anything like her.
"I'm really loud and I never stop talking, so this character is not like me," she says. "It's fun to play someone not like you because it lets you be whoever you want."
Brittany, too, agrees her character isn't much like her real self - she's Valerie, the "mean girl's" best friend.
"They kind of gossip about others and they kind of expect to win," she says. "It's fun to play. You're given the script, but you can create the character, you can create the back story, all the characteristics - it's just like making a new person, and being it."
In the senior cast is another Burnaby resident, 25-year-old Ashley Siddals, who appears as the spoiled "mean girl" Shawn.
"She's very determined to do anything to get what she wants. She'll do anything to win," Ashley explains. "She's super-fun."
Ashley, like the two younger girls, says she enjoys the chance to play someone out of character.
"It's the freedom you have to do stuff you'd never do in real life," she says with a laugh. "You have to find something to love about the character. I love that she goes 100 per cent for what she wants."
Both Brittany and Julia - who have done most of their performance studies at Douglas Ballet Academy - say a future in musical theatre is definitely their dream.
"Just being on stage, on a Broadway stage .," Brittany says, with a smile that lights her eyes.
Julia nods enthusiastically and says her dream roles are to play Glinda in Wicked or Elle Woods in Legally Blonde (and yes, of course she saw both when they came to Vancouver recently).
Meanwhile, both intend to continue their performance studies - Brittany at Danz Mode Productions and Julia at Spotlight Dance Centre.
Ashley, meanwhile, is already out there doing what the younger girls are hoping to do: Making a living in the world of performance.
The Prince George native, who moved to the Lower Mainland after studying at Grant MacEwan University in Edmonton and the Canadian College of Performing Arts in Victoria, admits it can be tough to get work as a performer.
She balances her performing gigs with work as a server.
"It's been touch and go," she admits. "It's fairly competitive, depending what you want to do. There's a lot of talent in the city."
But she's been lucky, she says; she's been busy this year, and she never runs out of things to try.
"I absolutely love it," she says. "I love telling the story, being creative and getting to sort of live in another world for awhile."
