HARLINGEN — Aaron Blount has received many accolades as a singer and actress.
However, being named a top performer at the UIL state high school one-act play competition earlier this month is by far the most note-worthy.
“Honestly it feels really, really crazy,” said Blount, 16, who earned the distinction for her performance as June Muldoon in the play “Anatomy of Gray” presented by Harlingen High School South.
So why is it crazy?
“I don’t know,” she said. “As a junior I thought I might have a better chance of getting it next year, but I just can’t believe it.”
So how did she pull it off a year early?
“I guess at state I tried to connect with the audience,” she said. “I really made the effort to connect with the audience and have fun at state.”
She described her character as a 15-year-old girl who’s going through some real-life struggles.
“Her father passed away at the beginning of the play and so she’s kind of questioning why God would allow that to happen,” she said. “She asks for a doctor to be sent to their town and the doctor arrives in a hot air balloon that crashes. It makes her question everything even more. She kind of finds her place in the world and who she is as a woman.”
Aaron has been singing for live audiences since third grade, and from singing, she moved into acting and musical theater.
“I really feel at home on the stage during live performances and plays,” she said. “There’s a cathartic feeling of performing and portraying characters and I just love telling stories on stage.”
She hopes to attend a musical theater school up north, perhaps in Chicago or New York City, and earn a bachelor of fine arts in musical theater.
With that in hand, she’d like to perform on Broadway.
