Whiz Kid: Natalie Siegel Builds Stage Skills Role by Role

Patch spotlights young people in the West Bloomfield community who are successful, talented and just plain awesome. Today we introduce the latest Whiz Kid:

Natalie Siegel

• Age: 13
• School:
• Achievements: This eight-grader is an accomplished singer and dancer who earns a place in the spotlight in professionally produced community presentations. Her newest role will be a vocal solo (It's Raining on Prom Night) in the rock musical Grease, being staged Nov. 5-6 in Birmingham by The Community House Youth Theater. This will be her third production there after appearances in Guys and Dolls and last November as the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland. She trains weekly with vocal coach Debbie Tedrick of Bloomfield Township and hopes to "keep going with this as far as I can go."
• Key to Awesomeness: "I love, love, love theater," says Natalie, who attends shows at Detroit's Fisher Theatre regularly and catches Broadway plays during family trips to New York. She'll audition this month in Birmingham for The Little Princess, being staged Dec. 8-10 by the Village Youth Theater. She performed there last June in Disney's Mulan Jr.
  
  Off-stage, she enjoys writing and science. She was on a four-girl team that earned an honorable mention in a yearly ExploraVision science competition last spring for designing a "navigator necklace" concept that would use a wearable camera to alert blind people if they approached hazards.

Do you know a local young person who deserves applause for academic, artistic or athletic achievements?. Everyone deserves attention, and we want to tell these stories.

E-mail nominations to Editor Tim Rath at tim.rath@patch.com, provide the information shown above and include a photo with names and ages. Then, come back for our Whiz Kid spotlight.