Broadway stardom beckons for Auckland teen

Hattie and Libby Johnston are performing together in The National Youth Theatre Company's Cats production. Photo / Doug Sherring

The performing arts centre at Diocesan School for Girls is a busy place during lunchtimes: choir and band practices, music tuition and rehearsals for class and school drama performances.

When Libby Johnston, 19, travels to New York in August, she'll remember fondly the countless hours she's spent at the centre playing viola and piano, rehearsing for choral performances and brushing up on lines.

Libby, from Drury, is the first New Zealander to be accepted into the undergraduate musical theatre programme at the Manhattan School of Music. She goes knowing that a large part of her tuition is covered by a Presidential Scholarship of up to US$80,000.

She travelled to New York to audition alongside 3000 young hopefuls; she was one of 33 students — and the only international one — selected for the 2018 intake and impressed course selectors so much they awarded her the highest-value scholarship possible.

Libby, who's now working part-time at her former high school, will receive US$20,000 for each of the four years she is studying. She says without the scholarship, her lifelong dream of travelling to the United States to study and become a musical theatre performer would not have been possible.

"I knew without some sort of financial aid, I would have to look at other options," she says. "I wanted to study in the United States, specifically in New York City, because there is no better place to learn and train than where musical theatre is part of the city's heartbeat."

The Manhattan School of Music was one of seven US institutions Libby auditioned for; six offered her a place but she chose Manhattan because it's a music conservatory, focusing exclusively on the arts, and not a college. She'll take piano lessons and music theory alongside studying musical theatre techniques, history, dramatic studies, dance, technical production, script analysis and humanities.

Now she's excitedly counting down until she leaves, but it is bittersweet for younger sister Hattie, 14, also a budding performer, who says she'll miss her eldest sister, particularly since the girls sometimes perform together.

This month, they appear in the National Youth Theatre Company's production of Cats. Hattie is in the chorus while Libby portrays Grizabella, arguably the most famous cat of all thanks to singing the ballad Memory.

While Grizabella is one of the most well-known roles in musical theatre, Libby has already played several iconic characters in school, NYTC and touring shows. They include playing Liesl von Trapp in a national tour of The Sound of Music that saw her perform in 22 theatres across the country.

Musical theatre might be her first love, but she's also clocked up some impressive theatre and singing achievements including the Best Performer of the Festival in the Shakespeare Globe Centre of New Zealand's University of Otago Sheilah Winn Shakespeare Festival last year and the Under 18 Champion of the New Zealand Aria Competition in 2016. At Dio, she led the elite choir St Cecilia Singers and regularly took part in The Big Sing schools' choir competition.

"At one point, I was in four choirs, two orchestras and rehearsing for two productions, as well as directing and being in a Shakespeare monologue and doing NCEA Level 3 but I didn't feel stressed," says Libby. "It came down to good organisation and also because being able to perform actually gives me my energy."

Her ultimate goal is to be in a Broadway musical performing up to eight times a week and says, one day, she'd love to play Rose in Dogfight. In her final year, Libby will get the chance to perform in a Senior Showcase where theatre professionals, including agents and casting directors, are invited to watch.

"This is an absolutely amazing opportunity as many go on to book a Broadway show or land roles in television and film due to these showcases."

•The National Youth Theatre Company's production of Cats is at the ASB Theatre, Aotea Centre from Thursday, June 21 to Sunday, June 24.