Sometimes you compete for one prize but end up with another.
Maggie Trepanier is one of those rare triple threats on the stage: singer, dancer, actor. She is involved now in the city's annual dance festival going on this week, but last week she was in the mix of competitors for the music festival. She was performing in the Royal Conservatory Grade 9 vocal level of the event and felt she had done well, but when the adjudicator passed judgment, it was not the result she was expecting.
Trepanier got the rarely used judge's option prize of National Class. It means Trepanier is part of the small contingent that will move on from the Prince George festival to the provincial one, but in addition, if she tops her Musical Theatre category at the provincials she is off then to the national competition.
"It was a big surprise for me," Trepanier said. "I got a phone call from (festival vocal director) Rose Loewen telling me what the judge had done. All I could think of was, What? Are you sure? Could you check that again?"
Trepanier is well known at the provincial level. She has competed on the dance side of the festival six times in the past and was the runner up in the Junior Musical Theatre category in 2011 so with those years of experience she knows the opportunity to advance to the nationals is real. This year, that competition is in Edmonton.
The songs that got her into the provincial round were Jimmy from the musical Thoroughly Modern Millie and The Love Of My Life from the musical Brigadoon.
The affirmation comes at a pivotal time for Trepanier, who had strongly wondered if her time on the stage was coming to a close. After a youth career that dates back to her toddlerhood, involved in many of the city's most popular community performances over the years, produced by both Judy Russell and Bonnie Leach, plus becoming an instructor at Enchainement Dance Centre, that was sober reflection indeed.
"It has only been in the past little while that I decided musical theatre was what I wanted to do," she said. "When I graduated from high school last year I decided to take a year off and figure out what I wanted to do - if I wanted to pursue performing arts as a career. Not being in school has allowed me to focus all my attention on that and yes, I figured out I do want to pursue that. I don't have anything else I'm as passionate about or excited about, so why wouldn't I at least try it."
She has applied to post-secondary institutions to begin that process of turning her lifelong amateur apprenticeships into a professional position.
First, though, she will be on stage this week in the Prince George and District Dance Festival and preparing for the Performing Arts BC Festival happening in May, this year held in Powell River.
