Rising Vail Christian’s
star
Angela Downs ready to storm the Great White Way
At the intersection of preparation and opportunity, where greatness lives, you’ll find Angela Downs. Downs is a Vail Christian High School senior headed to American Musical Dramatics Academy in New York City, where she’ll study musical theater. She got to show off a little before she leaves, staging Vail Christian’s first Senior Showcase, a one-woman show. She sings, she dances, she tells jokes and does a monologue. “It’s a good opportunity for my family and friends to see how far I’ve come,” Downs said. It’s been a great ride so far, mostly. Downs grew up riding and showing horses. She bought her first one when she was 8 years old. As sometimes happens with young women, her interests shifted away from the equine and toward entertainment.
On a whim, she auditioned for the school play her freshman year, “The Music Man.” She decided the stage was for her. Director Rayla Kundolf spotted her right away. “Rayla Kundolf put the idea in my head that I could do this,” Downs said. It turns out that Kundolf was right. Downs’ voice is strong in an Old School kind of way, like her ability to get paid for a gig rests with her ability to dazzle people in the back of the room – which it often does. She looks the audience in the eye and has that performer’s knack for convincing everyone in the place that she’s singing straight to you. “Every week, she would come in for her lesson accompanied by her mother whose devotion to Angela is exemplary and so supportive,” said Maxine Graboyes, Downs’ vocal coach for the last four years. “Her mom would ask me, ‘Do you think she can really sing?’ and I would say to her that
it takes time to develop a good singing technique, but if she continues to put in the time and effort, and let nature as well as maturity take it’s course, then I believe she can develop into a fine singer.” Angela loves a challenge, Graboyes said. “Angela became a very determined and committed young lady,” Graboyes said. But it’s not all happilyever-after. Downs was devastated when the family lost her oldest brother Nate in an accident. She stopped performing, and almost everything else. Fast forward a year or so, when the actress playing the Wicked Witch of the West in the “Wizard of Oz” decided she was going to look at colleges and would miss the last few performances. So, Kundolf turned to Downs. The Wicked Witch was never so wonderful. Downs had seven days to learn everything. She hit it out of the park. That summer, Downs landed a gig as a singing waitress at The Marketplace in Vail, a great restau-
rant with a singing wait staff. That’s where she learned to perform for her audience, no matter how small. The singing was great, the job was fun and her colleagues were delightful. But some of the customers could be a little cranky, she said. Still, you play to your audience and if you can get a middle-aged man to sing that he wants his steak medium rare, you’ve got what it takes.