HIGH SCHOOL DRAMA: Kaila Wooten

Welcome, dear ladies and gentlemen and all supporters of theater (both local and otherwise) to the freshest installment of High School Drama, our feature that introduces some of Music City's hardest working teenaged actors to the world outside Tennessee. Clearly, we live in a city made all the more interesting by the creative people who live here and we are especially fortunate in the theater community to be blessed by scores of talented individuals who make a night in the theater a compelling and challenging experience.

In fact, the "adult actors" (and I use that term both sparingly and lovingly) should keep an eye cast over their shoulders toward the younger actors fast gaining ground on them. High School theater is growing by leaps and bounds, led by outstanding educators like Paula Flautt, Daron Bruce, Jenny Noel, Will Butler, Mary Ellen Smith, Matt Smith and company, and their students are making their mark on the theater community, not only in high school productions but in community and professional projects, as well.

Our series continues this week with our first home-schooled actor, the lovely and talented Kaila Wooten, an amazingly talented and remarkably poised teenager who has been on stages throughout Middle Tennessee for much of her life and in 2013 was named a First Night Honors Most Promising Actor. Part of an enormously creative family (her parents are musician Victor Wooten and actor/singer Holly Goldman Wooten and she has siblings who are just as much forces of nature as she is), Kaila seems ageless. Sure, you know she's a teenager, but she is so centered and so confident that you tend to forget she's not in her 20s or 30s.

Raised in a musical family, Kaila Wooten has been performing in theater since she was a little girl. Homeschooled and now a high school senior, her experience has ranged from recording choral vocal sessions to touring the country with funk bands. One of her first onstage memories was performing alongside Melinda Doolittle in an original musical called This Is My Family (Life Works). Shortly thereafter, she performed in Gaylord Opryland's Christmas Spectacular in 2005. Some of her favorite roles include Little Red in Into the Woods, Violet in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Belle in Beauty and the Beast Jr. (all at the Renaissance Center), Eleez in the premier reading of Airship at Vapor Station (the original musical by Carolyn German and Rollie Mains), Rosie on the MTI Jr. Bye Bye Birdie Jr. rehearsal tracks, and Mimi in Rent: School Edition for Act Too Players. She is a huge lover of reading and writing, and she enjoys playing piano in her band, Triptych, with her younger brother Adam and 2014 First Night Honors Most Promising Actor Nick Fair.

Her intellect is impressive, her ambition is inspiring and her presence onstage is breathtaking: now's your chance to get to know Kaila Wooten a little better.

What's your theatrical goal in life? I want to be able to transport people. My favorite thing about theater is that it takes people out of their immediate world and brings them wherever they want to be-whenever they want to be. I don't care where I end up in the theater world, as long as there's somebody around who appreciates occupying someone else's place in time for a few hours.

If you could play any role in any show...what would you choose? Oh, easy-Natalie Goodman, next to normal. It's great, everything's great-why wouldn't it be great? It's great...

What's been your best theatrical experience to date? I had the amazing opportunity to play Beth in Little Women the Musical with The Larry Keeton Theater, and it was such an incredible experience. The cast was small, and since the story is of such an intimate nature, we all ended up being a real family by the end of the show. It was an emotionally charged time for the cast as a whole, and on top of everyone's immense talent, it was just beyond inspiring to get to love on four wonderful little women every night!

Who are your favorite actors? I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for Jen Damiano, and Jeremy Jordan is probably pretty high on everybody's list.

What show that you've never seen would you most like to see? This changes from day to day, but right now it's Finding Neverland! It's such a beautiful story.

To post a comment, you must register and login.