March’s Student to Watch!

This coming month, keep an eye on BNTC private acting student Jordan Flippo. A fifteen year old student at Cascia Hall, Jordan has been taking private lessons at BNTC for about five months. In that time she has worked with BNTC’s artistic director to prepare for a musical audition, a one-act play audition and subsequent competition as well as two Shakespeare competitions.

Though she had only recently joined her drama department as a freshman in the fall, Jordan successfully landed the role of Mrs. Frank in Cascia’s one-act performance of The Diary of Anne Frank. She and the other members of the play’s ensemble cast took the play all the way to state level One Act Play Competition where they received excellent reviews for taking on this deeply moving and difficult script.

Jordan is currently rehearsing for her role as Ms. Andrew in Cascia Hall’s spring musical, Marry Poppins. The cruel and highly comical Ms. Andrew is a show stopping addition to the Broadway version of the beloved musical. She is the strict and rigid counterpart to the lovable and creative Marry Poppins. This role will give Jordan an opportunity to showcase her classically trained singing voice as well as her comical sensibilities. It will be quite a contrast to the more dramatic roles Jordan has been playing recently and it is sure to be a thrill.

In the midst of all of her rehearsals, Jordan still finds time to enter Shakespeare competitions with her powerful portrayal of Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing. Though the play is a comedy, Jordan’s speech is rich with deeply felt anger, sadness and feelings of betrayal. Shortly after beginning work on the speech in preparation for the state Shakespeare competition, Jordan learned that the Tulsa Opera was holding an online Shakespeare monologue competition. Jordan submitted her video and, though it was recorded very early in her preparatory process, Jordan placed a very close second and received a great deal of positive response to her work. Since that time, Jordan has continued to hone her speech and has also been learning and polishing Shakespeare’s sonnet 63. Both are contest ready and showing great promise. Jordan will represent her high school at the state level of the Shakespeare competition in the coming week.