Annie” will be performed at 7:30 p.m.
Wednesday at The Clay Center.
Wednesday at The Clay Center.
Entertainment
Thursday September 20, 2007
For "Annie" star, it's a hard-knock life
by Monica Orosz
Daily Mail features editor
“Annie” will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at The Clay Center.
Amanda Balon is sure to get applause for her title role in the Broadway
touring production of "Annie," which comes to the Clay Center Wednesday.
The 10-year-old's family deserves plenty of accolades, too, as they all have adjusted their lives
while Amanda tours the country performing.
Her father, Timothy, quit his engineering job with an aerospace company three years ago so that
he could accompany Amanda on tour -- this is her third with "Annie," though her first in the lead
role.
Her mother Angie, an osteopath, often works four long days so that she may take a long weekend
to be with Amanda.
And Amanda's siblings, twin brother Nicholas and 13-year-old sister Samantha have learned to
balance life that means both parents aren't always around.
"All my family is really supportive of me," Amanda said.
All of his children are talented performers, Timothy said, and he and his wife decided early on they
wanted to give them every opportunity they could to develop those talents.
"You never know for sure when you take them out and audition what the director might be looking
for," he said. "Once they get the call back from the director, we have a family meeting and discuss
what's going to have to change -- we have always handled it like that."
"It's not a piece of cake," he added about his current stage dad job.
"There's a lot of things that have to take place on tour. The first priority is to find food.
"Then there's all the logistics that go along with traveling -- taking care of bills for hotels, locating
the theater, walking back and forth to it -- sometimes it's a half a mile away.
"There is laundry and all of that stuff to take care of. And I do a lot of picture taking for the tour. It's
a busy life."
Timothy said he always sees Amanda on opening night at a new venue, but stopped a while ago
seeing her every performance.
"I stopped counting at 200 performances," he said.
Amanda figures she already has performed in "Annie" at least 450 times -- and she isn't a bit tired
of it. She played orphans Molly and Duffy in previous tours.
"It's such a great show," she said. "It's really entertaining and the lyrics are really clever."
Her familiarity with the show made learning Annie's lines a piece of cake, Amanda said. She has
made special efforts to bond with the dog that plays Sandy. The actor-dog, named Mikey, recently
shared a sleepover in Amanda's hotel room before the tour opened.
Amanda, a fifth-grader, and the other actors who play the orphans -- they range from fourth-
graders to seventh-graders -- are taught together by a tutor each morning and sometimes
squeeze in hours on the weekends, too.
"When we're not on the stage, if we have more than 20 minutes off, then we do schoolwork," she
said.
When she's not touring, Amanda also takes voice lessons, dance lessons and her latest passion,
acrodancing, a combination of acrobatics and dance.
"That's what got me really flexible," she said.
Amanda already has seen more places than most girls her age. Born in Kansas, she lived for two
years in her mother's native Zimbabwe before the family moved to Orlando, Fla. She has
performed all over the country and Canada.
Next up, she hopes, is a career in Hollywood.
"I want to be in a lot of movies," she said. She and older sister Samantha went to an open casting
call for a movie based on the stories of the American Girl dolls and both made it as far as callbacks.
Timothy Balon said he and his wife are prepared to move again if their children's' careers call
them to Hollywood or New York.
"We keep our fingers crossed," he said.
Contact writer Monica Orosz at monica@dailymail.com or 348-4830.
Charleston