HIS DREAM: BROADWAY
'Oliver!'
star
is
young
man
on
the
rise
--
with
a
role
to
match
Stage-struck
teen
grabs
leading
role
in
Theatre
Charlotte
musical
JULIE
YORK
COPPENS
Theater
Writer
It's just one thing after another with this kid.
"I guess I'm just lucky," shrugs Andrew Griner Jr., an eighth-grader at Northwest School of the Arts, who's had a string of stage roles as long and as memorable as the series of mishaps suffered by his current alter ego, Oliver Twist.
An operatic debut as the crippled boy in "Amahl and the Night Visitors," in Greensboro, before his family moved to Charlotte in 2006. Then he was Billy, the tough-talking but vulnerable child of divorce in "On Golden Pond," last fall at Theatre Charlotte; Amahl again, at Spirit Square; an unnamed boy in "Waiting for Godot" at Theatre Charlotte in February; and the doomed urchin Gavroche in Northwest's "Les Misérables" in March. Next came supporting parts in "Seussical" and "Children of Eden" this summer at Central Piedmont -- and in "Seussical," Andrew stepped into the leading role of Jojo when actor Corey Cray landed a TV job and had to miss three performances.
Now he's starring in "Oliver!" Lionel Bart's musical based on the Dickens classic in which everything bad that might possibly happen to an orphan on the run in Victorian London, does.
Until the happy ending.
"He gets abused. He doesn't get fed much. He sees very bad things," Andrew says, summing up Oliver's journey from rags to riches. "At first he doesn't know anything about who he is or where he came from. Then at the end, he is blessed."
For this rousing kickoff to Theatre Charlotte's 80th anniversary season, director Billy Ensley speedily picked Andrew out of 75 young hopefuls at auditions -- in part because the boy was so different from other Olivers Ensley had seen: "Andrew's got a rascally, kind of cocky quality, which is not what you immediately think of when you think of Oliver," the director says.
In the 1968 movie version and in most stage productions, Ensley adds, the orphan tends to be an angel-faced cipher at the center of a swirl of more interesting characters and sensational events. Ensley wanted a sympathetic Oliver, sure, but also a true hero. Andrew, small for his age (he turns 14 next Sunday) but wiry and quick, with thick brown hair and big brown eyes, "suited perfectly," Ensley says.
"He's a smart kid," says Mike Collins, the Charlotte actor and radio personality, who plays bad-guy Fagin to Andrew's Oliver. "He was the first person off-book (lines memorized) in rehearsal, out of everyone. And he brings a real, true, natural sweetness to the role -- it's not acting."
Nor will Andrew be acting on opening night, when Oliver gets his first scary, exhilarating taste of life on the London streets. Poised as the young actor is, and for all his experience, Andrew expects his heart will pound as he plays "Oliver!" for a full house.
"I'm nervous now, because this is the 80th season (opener), and I have a big, big part," Andrew says. "But I'm thankful for it. I wouldn't have even been here if all these other people hadn't been here to get (Theatre Charlotte) to the 80th season.
"With all this studying and all this work, I believe I have a good chance to be on Broadway. That's my dream. I would like to be, maybe, in New York, but maybe not all the time," Andrew says. "In the winter, I would head to L.A., I guess." PREVIEW
Oliver!
Theatre Charlotte opens its 80th anniversary season with Lionel Bart's rousing musical based on Dickens' "Oliver Twist."
WHEN: 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday; 2:30 p.m. next Sunday; runs through Sept. 30.
WHERE: Theatre Charlotte, 501 Queens Road. ADMISSION:
$10-$24.
DETAILS: 704-372-1000; www.carolinatix.org; show details at www.theatrecharlotte.org..
