Julie Cortez
El Hispanic News Writer
Portland, OR ― Luis Avila was studying at an arts high school in Orange County, Calif., when he first saw a performance of the stage musical “Wicked.” The teenage Avila’s training focused on dance, acting, and singer, and he aspired to pursue a career in musical theater. Yet he claims he never thought he’d get the chance to perform in this revisionist look at the young women who would come to be known as the Wicked Witch of the East and Glinda the Good Witch.
But sometimes even undreamed dreams come true, and Avila is now in his fifth month with the touring production of “Wicked,” a musical with no shortage of special effects, action, laughs, and grandiose song and dance numbers.
“It’s very lavish and huge,” he says. “It’s a great feeling to be a part of that.”
“Wicked” is in Portland now through April 5 at the Keller Auditorium, and the local audience can see Avila on stage in several ensemble parts, including a winged monkey and Emerald City resident. He is also an understudy for role of the munchkin Boq, and has filled in for that character’s primary actor a handful of times thus far on the tour.
The siren song of musical theater called to an adolescent Avila when he scored a spot in a national tour of “The King and I” at age 12, a job that would take him on the road for a year and a half. He and the other children in the cast received their education through tutors, and Avila’s parents and grandparents took turns accompanying him on the tour.
“It was really fun and it made me fall in love with performing and acting,” he says.
Avila pursued that love through four years of training at a school for the arts, a high school program that he considered to be so strong that he decided to skip college and go straight to auditioning.
Avila’s first professional gig after graduating was the role of “Paul” in a Houston production of “A Chorus Line.” Since then, the 23-year-old performer has primarily worked in regional Los Angeles shows, including “West Side Story,” “Miss Saigon,” “Evita,” and “Peter Pan.”
In high school, this son of an Ecuadorean father and Japanese mother expected that his mixed ethnicity might limit his stage options.
“I had inhibitions about being an ‘ethnic actor,’” Avila says. But what he has found in his professional career is a lot of color blind casting and increasing diversity among the shows being mounted, from “West Side Story” to the new Tony-winning “In the Heights.”
He’s also found that he is in the fortunate position of loving his job, his time in front of a live audience, and even the repetition of doing the same show night after night.
“I like the fact of being able to do it over and over again and every time is different,” he says.
Long productions like “Wicked” ― Avila will spend five weeks performing in Portland alone ― also afford him the opportunity to hone his skills and become a better actor, as he learns to be consistent over long stretches of nights on stage.
Avila hopes that the lessons he learns on the road with “Wicked” will help him expand his work opportunities into television and film, and of course to the holy grail for musical theater actors: the bright lights of Broadway.
Tickets for “Wicked” range from $54.50 to $128.50; a limited number of seats will be offered for $25 each, cash only, in day-of-performance lotteries each night. To be entered in the lottery, arrive at the Keller Auditorium (SW 3rd and Clay) 2½ hours before show. A drawing for the reduced-price seats will be held 30 minutes later. For show and ticket information, visit www.BroadwayAcrossAmerica.com or www.portlandopera.org.
