Coral Gables third-grader lands on Broadway in ‘Evita’
Ava-Riley Miles is like many young girls when it comes to Wicked.
She thinks the Tony-winning Stephen Schwartz musical is wickedly good, has memorized its songs, and idolizes its star, Kristin Chenoweth, who played Glinda, one of the good witches of Oz.
“I want to be like her when I’m older,” Ava-Riley says.
Sure, kid. So do many.
But did we mention that Ava-Riley started singing those songs at age 2-1/2 after her parents, two attorneys from Coral Gables, brought the Wicked CD cast recording home?
“I didn’t realize she was memorizing the whole thing,” mom Susan Trujillo said. “She said, ‘I want to sing for you’ and sang Popular, the whole song. My mom said, ‘Get a video camera, because that is not normal.’ ”
Indeed. Within six months Ava-Riley was pestering her parents to take her to see Wicked when its road tour hit Fort Lauderdale’s Broward Center for the Performing Arts. She sat transfixed by the colorful production. By age 3, she’d announced her goal. “She said, ‘One day I will be in Wicked,’ ” on Broadway, no less, mom recalls.
Wicked can wait because Ava-Riley, now 8, is in the middle of a month-long run co-starring on Broadway in the Evita revival with leads Ricky Martin as Che and Elena Roger as Eva Perón.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/01/11/v-print/3178454/coral-gables-third-grader-lands.html#storylink=cpy
