P.J.
Palmer |
Thirteen-year-old P.J. Palmer would like to have a career
on the Broadway stage. This month, he might get a nice award
to add to his performing resume.
P.J. is the youngest local actor to be nominated for a
2007 Kevin Kline award. This is the second year for the
awards, named for the Tony and Oscar award-winning actor
Kevin Kline.
The awards are given for the best work done on St. Louis
stages during the previous calendar year. Kline is a native
of St. Louis and graduated from the Priory School.
P.J.'s nomination is for "outstanding supporting actor
in a musical." The nomination was for his work in last summer's
Muny production of "The King and I."
P.J.
in his "King and I" costume |
He played Louis, the son of the teacher who taught the
King of Siam. In the noted musical film, actress Deborah
Kerr was the teacher and the late Yul Bryner was the king.
In one part of his Muny role, P.J. sings back and forth
with the King's son in the tune, "Whistle a Happy Tune."
Coincidentally, Kevin Kline's Oscar award was for supporting
actor in the movie, "A Fish Named Wanda."
The 2007 awards ceremony will be Monday, March 26, at the
Roberts Orpheum Theater in St. Louis. This is the second
year the awards program has been held by the Professional
Theater Awards Council.
Most of the other nominees are adults.
P.J. said he and his family didn't even know he had been
nominated until friends called and e-mailed their home.
But, he said he's certainly pleased to be nominated.
P.J. is now a seventh grader at Crestview Middle School
in Chesterfield.
He said he got his performing debut "on the first day after
my 4th birthday."
He was featured in a television ad for St. John's Hospital.
The ad featured several youngsters who were receiving treatment
for childhood diseases. He was an asthma sufferer.
"All the kids had to pronounce real long words associated
with our illnesses. I had to pronounce 'broncospasms,'"
he said.
"Then, my mother wouldn't let me perform again until I
was 6," he said. His next performance was as a spider in
a YMCA performance of "The Whiz of the West."
Since then, he's been active in a variety of performances
at such places as Stages St. Louis and The Muny. Most of
the performances were in musicals.
But, a year ago, he was one of three young actors picked
for parts in The Black Rep's non-musical show, "Caroline,
or Change." He played Noah Gellman, the son in a New Orleans
family that was under stress.
P.J. said the Black Rep play was his best experience so
far in performing. "Before that, I was doing mostly happy
things. This gave me a chance to expand into something totally
different," he said.
(Young Saint Louis.com did a story about the
three young boys featured in that play. P.J. performed along
with Jordan Ward and Tra'von Griffith, who played sons of
the African-American maid, Caroline. To read that March,
2006, story, click
here.)
P.J. will try out Saturday, March 3, for parts in the Muny's
2007 season.
During the 2006 Muny season, P.J. performed also in "Oliver."
In that play, he had two parts but only one line of dialogue.
"I was one of the members of Fagin's Gang and then I was
also a book boy. In that part, I said, 'Your books, sir,'"
he said.
Asked about disappointments in acting, P.J. looked back
on his first Muny performance. That was a part that didn't
happen.
"I was in the cast of 'Mame.' My scene was toward the
end of the play. There were so many rain delays they called
off the performance before they got to my scene," he said.
To prepare for his acting career, P.J. has taken dance
lessons for five years at the Kropinski Academy of Dance.
He's had three years of voice lessons with Nance St. James
in Webster Groves.
So far in 2007, P.J. was in the Midwest Lyric Opera's performance
of "Amahl and the Night Visitors." He played Amahl, the
crippled boy who meets the three Wise men in a play based
on the birth of Christ.
He's always gone by the nickname of P.J. His given name
is Patrick Joseph. "But, for a long time, even I didn't
know what my name was. If someone asked me, I always said,
'Pickle Juice,'" he said.
