BRUREE teen Madeline Blackwell (17) has had her first taste of stardom and the red carpet having landed the gong for best actress at the Amateur Irish Musical Society Awards (AIMS).
And by all accounts it won’t be her last.
In February, Madeline played to packed houses in the Excel Theatre in Tipperary as Esmerelda in their production of the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
But when she was nominated for the Irish amateur equivalent of the Oscars two weeks ago, she said she never expected to come home from the INEC in Killarney with the trophy.
“I was completely stunned and ecstatic,” she told the Limerick Post. “I loved playing the role but I never expected this to happen.”
Having previously been invited to audition for the Tipperary Musical Society on foot of her previous acclaimed performance as the lead in Sister Act, The Musical, Madeline landed the role of Esmerelda.
Having scooped the award she says she is now thinking very seriously about a career in the spotlight.
“I had been thinking more and more about it but now I’m seriously looking at schools. It’s a matter of narrowing down where I might go either here in Ireland or abroad.”
Her parents, Lesley Ann and Edward, were there on the night for the glamorous event.
“We’re so proud of her and it is so fantastic that she got this award, particularly because she is so young,” said Lesley Ann
But speaking about the immediate future for the Scoil Pól Kilfinnan student, her mother said: “She doing her Leaving Cert next year and that has to take priority. But it certainly seems that this is the way she is leaning and that it may be her career.”
“We’re very aware of how hard it is to break into those circles and to earn a living but we’re all behind her.”
