Skyler Vallo

Skyler Vallo has traveled many places in her experiences with theatre, and she now finds herself performing in “TEXAS”. The Roanoke, Virginia native is a singer and dancer in the outdoor musical, as well as understudy for the role of “Elsie McLean.”

Vallo’s acting career began with an unexpected event during her eighth grade year. “As a little girl, I was always interested in sports like volleyball, cheerleading and soccer,” she said. “When I was in eighth grade I was cut from the soccer team, and I was devastated.” At the same time Vallo was cut from the soccer team, her mother heard a community theatre was putting on a children’s production of Fiddler On The Roof, so she decided to audition for it the following weekend. “I ended up getting cast as “the Fiddler,” which was really funny because I didn’t know how to fiddle, and I had to pretend,” Vallo said. “That’s pretty much what started my acting career.”

Vallo continued acting, and eventually, she went from being “the Fiddler” in a children’s production to being a top 20 finalist for the role of “Laurie” on VH1’s The New Partridge Family. “My mom saw an ad in the Roanoke Times searching for the role in VH1’s new reality show,” Vallo said. “It was summertime, and my mom said, ‘Well, why don’t we just do that?’”

The Vallo family decided to get on a plane and fly to Minneapolis. “There were probably about one or two thousand people there.”

Vallo was required to sing a song in the first round. In round two it was a little more exciting because she got to sing with a band. The next day, she was given a script, which she would have to memorize and act out with one of the people from the show on the following day. “The script was about three pages,” she said. “It was pretty stressful.”

There were only four audition cities, and Vallo landed as one of the top five finalists in Minneapolis. “I was nearly the last one called out of everyone,” she said. “They sent me a Sony contract. It was as big as a Bible. It really was.” Vallo made the top 20 for the role of “Laurie,” but only the top eight would advance to Los Angeles. “I’m kind of glad I was cut, because if I had made it, I would have been under contract for about ten years,” she said.

The trip to Minneapolis wasn’t the last time she traveled a long distance for the sake of performing. Vallo is currently a junior at Birmingham-Southern College in Alabama, where she is majoring in musical theatre. Needless to say, it’s a long way from Roanoke, Virginia. “I grew up in Virginia, and I always wanted to go to school somewhere away from home,” she said. “There are a lot of good schools in Virginia, but I wanted to see another part of the country.”

Vallo applied to several schools in New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Alabama. When she traveled to Birmingham for a scholarship day, Vallo ended up with a good musical theatre scholarship. “A lot of other schools don’t have musical theatre programs, and I really wanted to do musical theatre.” She said. Vallo also really liked the professors at BSC, which is something she says is very important to her.

Vallo’s interest in visiting different places is what lead her to Birmingham-Southern. It is also how she learned about the outdoor musical, “TEXAS”. Vallo attended the Southeastern Theatre Conference (SETC) in Chattanooga, Tennessee this year. SETC is one of the biggest of its kind, and every year many companies gather to cast for their shows.

Before Vallo could attend SETC she had to pass a screening round held in Alabama. Thousands of performers go through a state screening audition and only 1,000 +/- performers qualify for the actual conference. “When you make the second round, there are a lot of companies there. “TEXAS” was there, and it was like a lot of other situations, they ended up calling me back. I really liked Dave and Adrienne and thought this would be a good company to work for.” Vallo said.

Vallo’s favorite memory of her performing career thus far has come from an experience as the understudy for “Elsie McLean.” Chelsea Gidden (Elsie) was stuck at an airport and would not be able to make it to the performance one evening. Vallo had two hours to prepare and did not know for sure whether or not she’d be going on as “Elsie” until 30 minutes before the show.

“It was kind of a stressful day, but it ended up being really good, even though it was pouring down rain outside,” Vallo said.

Despite not knowing what to expect, Vallo said the experience turned out to be a good one. “Everyone really helped me out and told me where I needed to be,” she said. “It showed me that the cast was really caring about everyone. There were a lot of scenes that I hadn’t even performed yet but Cory and Stephen (Calvin and Dave), and really the entire cast was like, ‘Come with me,’ ‘You need to be here,’ and telling me what to do. I thought it was really sweet to see how everyone was so thoughtful.”

It was during this performance when Vallo also had her most embarrassing experience. It was during the rain-drenched finale that Vallo had to come down from the depot. Vallo had to wear Gidden’s costumes, which were inconveniently too long for her. “She’s a lot taller than me,” Vallo said. “They had them pinned up, but they’re still long. I came off the depot, and there were four stairs. I tripped and fell off the stairs but Cory (Calvin Armstrong) caught me.”

Vallo had to recover from the slip quickly. “I didn’t fall on my face, but I would have if Cory hadn’t caught me,” she said. “Later that evening, a few people came up to me, and they said things like, ‘I saw you fall,’ and ‘I’m glad you’re okay,’ and that was probably my most embarrassing moment.”

As the understudy for “Elsie,” Vallo has had to pay close attention to everything that Gidden does in the role. “She was gone a little bit during rehearsal, so I got to do some scenes for her,” Vallo said.

Vallo has found the toughest part of being in “TEXAS” to be the three week rehearsal period, where the cast would rehearse nine to 12 hours a day. “The further into the rehearsal process, the longer the evenings,” she said. “That was just really exhausting for me, and it was seven days a week, with no days off for three weeks, so it was tiring.” The three week rehearsal period began when Vallo arrived in Texas. “I had to leave school and take all my exams a week and a half early, and we had just finished a musical,” she said. “I drove here (fifteen hours), and we started rehearsal the next day. I was tired.”

Vallo’s favorite part of being in “TEXAS” has been a combination of improving her skills and meeting new friends. “I feel like dancing has been my weakest point,” she said. “I pretty much had the acting and singing down, but I feel like my dancing skills have improved a lot. We have an optional dance class everyday, so I try to do that, and doing the show every night has really improved my dancing.”

Vallo was not really sure what to expect as far as who she would be acting with in the canyon. “I have really bonded with my cast,” she said. “I came into it being kind of curious about what it would be like. They have been really great.”

With plans to continue theatre as her career, Vallo commented on the importance of making friends from many different places. “I’m making friends who live all over the country, so if I ever go to New York, Florida or Chicago,” Vallo said. “Those people now have the “TEXAS” spirit and compassion… the best kind of people to know.”