Lynnville-Sully Student Accepted to American Musical and Dramatic Academy College and Conservatory of the Performing Arts

Talon Woods (submitted photo)

Talon Woods (submitted photo)

Talon Woods, 18, will graduate from Lynnville-Sully School in May 2014. He has been accepted to American Musical and Dramatic Academy College and Conservatory of the Performing Arts in New York City (AMDA).

Talon started his acting career at the age of 5, in Oskaloosa, when he played Tom Thumb in Mother Goose in 2002. He has done several plays with the Missoula Chidren’s Theatre Groups that came to the George Daily Auditorium. He spent many weeks at Summer Theater Camp under the direction of Erin Salem, Brandon Carter, Jessica Bowie and Lynn Johnson. He learned a lot there!

His parents are Daminika and Randy VanderWeerdt of Searsboro, Iowa.

In March, Talon and Mom went to Kansas City where he auditioned for his spot at AMDA. Only 1,000 kids are accepted each year for this school. It is a 2 year school and a $3,000 scholarship was awarded to him. “The judge was very impressed with his performance” his mother said. His audition was singing “Who I’d Be” from “Shrek the Musical” and Aston’s monologue from the play “Caretaker”.

This acceptance is the first step for Talon’s goal to be a performer on Broadway. At Lynnville-Sully, Woods has been very active in chorus, band, speech and drama, along with many other activities.

He is a very talented young man, excelling not only in speech activities, but in acting and musical instruments of all kinds. He has participated four years in the Speech program, in both Large Group Speech and Individual Speech, receiving Division I or II ratings. Last year, Woods and his partner Lindsy Ritter were selected to All State for their music theater performance of “Tango Maureen” from “Rent”. He is the dance captain, 2014, Drum Major, 2014, and Tenor 1 in Choir. He plays soccer with the Prairie City-Monroe schools. He is active in cross country, track at Lynnville-Sully. Talon is also very active in Teens Encountering Christ and works at Pizza Ranch in Grinnell.

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