As students, we know how difficult it can be trying to balance our academic life with our social life — not to mention trying to find time to call our parents, eat and perhaps even sleep occasionally. Could you then imagine trying to figure out how to balance your time if you were cast in a national tour of a Broadway show?
Katrina Yaukey is doing just that. She is a member of the ensemble in the touring production of the musical “Billy Elliot” and is currently studying music production and technology at Berklee College of Music.
Luckily, she was able to take online classes to continue her education while traveling around the country.
“Funnily enough, our sound guy on the show also has the same certificate from Berklee that I’m aiming to get,” she said. So, she has that resource as well as “some really, really, really talented musicians working on [the] show that have been a wealth of information too.”
Yaukey is no stranger to incorporating music into her life. When she was younger, she was a part of her parents’ band, The Main Event. She said that she “had two older brothers and [they] were required to learn something that either compliment[ed] the band or eventually be in the band.”
“I guess a Partridge family situation a little bit, but it became an obsession for me, fairly early on, to play as many instruments as possible,” she said. “I actually have 27 instruments that I own in my apartment in New York City.”
She even gets to play the accordion in a number in “Billy Elliot.”
For Yaukey, watching the kids perform in the show is “an honor.” At the time of her interview with The State Press, there were four different people that rotated playing the role of Billy. She said that each one did two shows a week, “so it’s a different show every day, and I think that that also lends itself to keeping the actors on their toes and really, honestly invested in what’s going on onstage,” she said.
Yaukey also enjoys the traveling as part of the whole experience.
“I really like being on the road,” she said. “It’s really fun to see how the show is received in different cities as well. So far, it’s been received really well.”
“Billy Elliot” will be at ASU Gammage April 26 through May 8 and, according to Yaukey, “It’s just not worth missing how talented these kids and this ensemble is.”
Tickets can be purchased online at asugammage.com, over the phone by calling 1-800-982-ARTS (2787) or in person by visiting the ASU Gammage box office.
Reach the reporter at mmattox@asu.edu
