By Sandi Masori
SAN DIEGO — The prestigious Broadway San Diego Awards are coming up May 26. Only 10 male-identifying leads, and 10 female- identifying leads are chosen to compete from all the high school theater departments in San Diego County. From there, one student from each category will be chosen to go to New York to compete in the Broadway Jimmy Awards.
This year, two of the 20 talented competitors come from our San Diego Jewish Community; Shira Ehrlich from Westview High, and David Landis from Pacific Ridge.
I had a chance to meet with them over Zoom. Both of them, I learned, have been acting since they were around seven years old. David with J Company and Shira with Met2. They each were the only nominees from their respective schools to make it to the top 20. David was one of the finalists last year as well.
Shira began her journey as a dancer, starting with tap dancing, then moving to singing, and then acting seemed the logical next step. Her parents also sent her to theater camps over the summer, and things progressed from there.
David started first as a professional actor, doing commercials as a very young child, even appearing in a commercial for Barilla pasta when he was only three or four years old. From there he eventually went on to start his musical theater experience with the J Company. His first musical there was Peter Pan. When he was 10 years old, he starred in a professional production of James and the Giant Peach where he was the only child actor with a cast of professional adult actors. He says that to this day, that is one of his favorite theater memories.
Shira was nominated for her portrayal of Cady in Mean Girls, which was her first lead role. She shared that before she goes on stage, she takes a moment to appreciate that she gets to go out there and do what she loves in front of an audience. She said that moment of gratitude takes her mind off being nervous and worrying about forgetting her lines and puts her in the right frame of mind.
David also has a pre-performance ritual, but his is a longer process. He likes to do a little meditation before he goes out on stage, followed with some tea and water. His goal is to keep himself calm and ready to go with the flow.
Both Shira and David said that their favorite roles so far are the ones for which they were nominated- Cady from Mean Girls, and Bobby Strong from Urine Town.
When asked about their influences, David credited Joey Landwehr from J Company, who is also artistic director for the Broadway San Diego Awards show. Shira said that her biggest influence is her vocal coach Patricia Freund.
While both of them are obviously excited about being nominated and hope to win the opportunity to compete in New York, along with everything by that comes with it, neither is currently planning to major in theater, well not just theater anyway.
David, who still has another year to go before college, is currently considering a double major in software engineering and musical theater. Shira, who is graduating this year, will be going to Chapman University in Orange County as a biological sciences major, though she notes that Orange County has a thriving theater scene and she will probably try out for some shows while she’s there.
Both of them said that while of course they hope to win, they’re not really focused on that as it’s such a huge honor just to be nominated.
The Broadway San Diego Awards show is May 26 at the Balboa Theater. Tickets can be purchased at www.awards.broadwaysd.com
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