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Moore steps in and Judy show goes on at Roxy Theatre

Judy! The Judy Garland Story Where: Roxy Theatre When: July 15 to July 27 Tickets: $20 to $42 at Ticket Rocket (250-590-6291,ticketrocket.
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Tracey Moore at the Roxy Theatre, where she will be playing Judy Garland.

Judy! The Judy Garland Story

Where: Roxy Theatre

When: July 15 to July 27

Tickets: $20 to $42 at Ticket Rocket (250-590-6291,ticketrocket.org) or Roxy box office

 

Best known as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, Judy Garland was a product of the old vaudeville tradition that dictates the show must on.

So appropriately, when Sara-Jeanne Hosie — star of Judy! The Judy Garland Story — was forced to drop out last month for medical reasons, the company didn’t cancel. Instead, Blue Bridge Repertory Theatre launched a Canada-wide search to find a replacement.

Enter Victoria’s Tracey Moore. The new Judy is a veteran stage actor and singer who also found mid-career success as a voice-over artist for TV cartoons (she was in the Sailor Moon anime series). Fittingly, Moore is a product of the vaudeville tradition — her mother and brother were a popular dance duo who played the Canada/U.S. vaudeville circuit.

Although she’s lived here for a decade, Moore began appearing on Victoria stages only recently. The Calgary native was a stand-out in such productions as Cruel Tears/Lágrimas Crueles (Blue Bridge) and Home is a Beautiful Word (Belfry Theatre). She also picks up the occasional jazz club gig.

A lively woman with streaked blonde hair, Moore took time out between rehearsals of Judy! at the Roxy Theatre to explain how she came to be cast as Judy Garland.

“Someone called me and said Brian [Richmond, the show’s director] is in trouble. He just lost his Judy,” Moore said. When she phoned Richmond, he offered her the role. She immediately accepted, although Moore had yet to see the script.

It’s a demanding part, made more challenging by the fact Moore was thrust in at the last minute. Backed by a small combo, Judy! is a one-woman retrospective of Garland’s life stuffed with 26 songs and oodles of dancing.

Asked to rate its difficulty out of 10, Moore promptly replied: “Ten. And I’m going to be doing my makeup on stage. I’ve never done that before ... They’re all big sings, because [Garland] was a belter. I really enjoy the ballads, like Stormy Weather and I’m Always Chasing Rainbows.”

Moore’s professional show-biz career started at 13 with Let’s Make an Opera. Her mentors included Uta Hagen, the famous (and notoriously tough) New York acting instructor. In Toronto, Moore played the lead in Anne of Green Gables, which toured Canada and Japan. Stints on Broadway included Shenandoah (with Hal Linden) and The Secret Garden.

She’s no novice in the Judy Garland department. Moore once played Dorothy in a Kansas production of The Wizard of Oz , starring a rambunctious Phyllis Diller as the Wicked Witch. She played Garland — as well as Liza Minnelli and Barbara Streisand — in the New York production of Forbidden Hollywood. Known for her ability to summon up Garland-esque moxie, Moore was considered for the lead voice in the 2001 television movie Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows.

Last weekend, to publicize Judy!, she dressed up as Garland — complete with a human-hair wig — to participate in the Victoria Pride Parade.

“It was fantastic. It was really fun being behind the mask of someone else,” said Moore, who sat on a car waving while the crowd blew her kisses.

“I have familiarity with Garland and I love her. So I’m going to give it all I’ve got.”

While she doesn’t make a big thing of it — especially when publicizing her stage work — Moore has had a highly successful career as a voice actress for cartoons. She played lead voices in Sailor Moon, Care Bears, My Little Pony, Strawberry Shortcake and other series. Moore, in her early 50s, says she got into the field years ago to stay home while raising her daughter.

Her greatest voice-over hit was Serena/Sailor Moon in the mid-1990s. During our interview, upon request, she gamely upshifted into the startlingly high-pitched voice. Moore says the character is so popular, she needs security while attending Sailor Moon conventions.

She added, with a smile: “It’s like being a rock star in a secret world somewhere.”

achamberlain@timescolonist.com