Calabasas teen hits the stage in T.O.
By Joann Groff joann@theacorn.com

LOVE STRUCK- Beth Alison will play Jenny in Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Aspect of Love" at the Scherr Forum this Sunday. Alison, raised in Calabasas, hopes to sing on Broadway someday.

Eighteen-year-old Beth Alison has been taking voice lessons since she was 9, and can't remember a time when she wasn't singing.

"I honestly don't know what got me to start taking lessons- I've just always loved music," said Alison, who counts Judy Garland and LeAnn Rimes as big influences. "I say I've been singing since I was 9, but that's when I started training. I've actually been singing my whole life."

Alison, who was born and raised in Calabasas, is a homeschooled high school senior. She started out performing in local children's theater and got her first professional contract when she was 11. She's been working regionally, mostly in Los Angeles, ever since.

Alison's performed with the Civic Light Opera of South Bay, the Utah Festival Opera Company and at the Glendale Centre Theatre. She was in "Beauty and the Beast" with the Cabrillo Music Theatre in Thousand Oaks last summer and has played the role of Mary Lennox in "The Secret Garden" twice.

Her next big role is that of the young, love-struck Jenny in Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Aspects of Love." The Musical Theatre Guild is bringing the show to the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza's Scherr Forum at 3 p.m. Sun., Feb. 17.

"I am the youngest in the cast, and I'm so thankful to be working with such an incredible group of people," Alison said. "They've been absolutely wonderful and professional."

The show's producer, Kevin McMahon, said it's always a pleasure working with Alison. The two shared the stage as actors more than five years ago when McMahon played Alison's father in "The Secret Garden."

"She's extraordinarily mature for her age and very professional," McMahon said. "It's amazing. She's as prepared as some of the Broadway veterans in the show. She has a very bright future in front of her."

The production is a staged reading, so there are only a couple of short musical rehearsals. There is minimal costuming and set design.

"It's done more like concertstyle," Alison said. "It's a completely different monster. Shows like this are usually running totally on adrenaline. But they generally come out stunning. It gives new meaning to live theater."

After the show's close, Alison is looking forward to wrapping up her studies this spring. She's been homeschooled since the third grade, when she became "bored" with traditional schooling.

"It really freed me up to do what I really love to do," Alison said. "I got to focus on singing and acting and the academics I'm actually interested in. I'm very right-brain."

Alison said she likes learning about philosophy and the arts, and also enjoys the English and humanities classes she takes at Moorpark College.

When her classes are over, Alison is moving to Utah for the summer to perform with the Utah Festival Opera Company.

Next, she said she'd like to head to college, preferably on the East Coast, to major in musical theater and minor in journalism. If all goes as planned, Alison will finish college and end up in New York or Los Angeles to pursue careers in acting and recording.

"Of course Broadway is my dream."

Alison was recently awarded an honorable mention for third place in the Los Angeles Music Center Spotlight Awards. The nationally recognized scholarship program is for Southern California high school students, and Alison has been involved since her freshman year.

In her final eligible year, she won third place out of more than 460 competitors. She sang "My Brother Lived in San Francisco" and "Who Will Love Me As I Am?"

Alison has a twin sister, Annie, who is also involved in musical theater. Her mother, Wendy, is a full-time mom, and her father, Kevin, works in sales. The family has three dogs.