A young Watertown actress made her stage debut in a play headed to Broadway and on one of the area’s most well known stages.
Five-year-old Kendall Cote landed a part in the play “Gatsby,” which is in the midst of a 10 week run at the American Repertory Theater in Harvard Square.
In her role as Pammy, the daughter of Daisy Buchanan, she goes into the theater five times a week.
“We go in, play for a little bit. And then we go on stage, and then get a snack, and then we go home,” Kendall said
The play is nearly three hours long, but she is not there the whole time, her mother Melanie said.
“We go in at 8:30. And we get out at 9:30. We go in and we’re told what you do,” Melanie said. “You get costume, hair, makeup, and then go on stage.”
While she doesn’t have a line, she is in multiple scenes and has learned parts of the play
“She likes singing the songs in the show,” Melanie said.
Kendall is one of three young girls playing Pammy. Some days she is on stage, and other days she is the standby, ready to go on stage if needed.
Melanie saw the announcement for the play, and Kendall went to an audition at Boston Casting.
“I was so scared,” Kendall recalled.
She was called back for an audition for the director, but Kendall wasn’t sure about being in the play.
“I said, ‘No, I don’t want to do it,'” she said. “But then he picked me!”
The director was persistent, Melanie recalled.
“Then we get an email from (the director), we thought it was over and he says, ‘Oh, we’d really love to have Kendall be part of the show,” Melanie said.
Kendall is not the first member of the family to act. Melanie has been in some movies, including “Legally Blonde,” “Patriot’s Day,” and “Ted.”
“My older daughter (Madison) has done it forever, so then we said let’s get Kendall into acting,” Melanie said.
Madison Donlan has credits in “Hubie Halloween,” and “Love, Weddings & Other Disasters,” and uncredited roles in multiple movies, including “Moonrise Kingdom” and “Don’t Look Up.” And Kendall’s brother, Riley Donlan (former captain of the Watertown High School basketball team), had a role in the TV series “Brotherhood.”
Among the cast for “Gatsby” is Isaac Powell, who plays the title role and was in two seasons of “American Horror Story,” and Ben Levi Ross (Nick), who was the lead in “Dear Evan Hansen” on Broadway and was in the movie “Tick, Tick … Boom!”
After the play’s run in Cambridge, which ends on Aug. 3, “Gatsby” will be going to Broadway, but Melanie is not sure if Kendall will be invited to be part of that production.
For information about the “Gatsby” and tickets, click here.