“Being able to express my creativity, but through a different character, that’s what I really like about acting,” Jasmine Gray says. Photos by Collin Richie.
Queen Bee
Meet the young, multitalented star leading New Venture Theatre’s latest production
Jasmine Gray is only 13, but she’s already lived more life than many adults.
She’s a science buff, with the title of 2015 Louisiana STEM Expo champ under her belt for an experiment with cornstarch. She’s an aspiring author, who’s taken on an international role as Student Ambassador with the People to People program that took her through France, Italy, Switzerland and Austria.
And now, she’s leading the seasoned cast and crew of New Venture Theatre as the titular role in its production of Akeelah and the Bee.
“Akeelah is really, really smart, and she’s amazing at spelling. I’m not amazing at spelling—I mean, I’m OK—but I feel that kind of passion with science,” Jasmine says of how she relates to the role.
Her mother, Nenette, noticed Jasmine’s knack for channeling characters from movies and television as early as her toddler years, but there were few creative outlets where they lived in Indiana. When the family moved to Baton Rouge near Jasmine’s sixth birthday, Nenette quickly enrolled her in BREC’s acting camps. Now an eighth grader at McKinley Middle Magnet, Jasmine takes acting classes and workshops and continues to perform in camps. The role of Akeelah is her biggest yet.
“I don’t want to say nerve-wracking, because that’s a little bit too much, but at the start I was a little timid to know that I was doing a whole production—a real production,” Jasmine says. “But the New Venture program, these are really great people, so they made me feel at home as soon as we started.”
The Akeelah and the Bee play is based on the movie of the same name about a young girl overcoming prejudice, family turmoil and more setbacks to compete in a national spelling bee. In the show’s casting process, New Venture Managing Artistic Director Greg Williams was floored by Jasmine’s audition.
“You had to have this star quality. The trick to the show is finding a little girl that age that can carry the story that is sort of a narrative about adults impacting a child,” Williams says. “We were looking for someone who was captivating, engaging and could carry over 100 pages worth of lines. Jasmine walked in very confident. … Her stage presence blew us away. When she walked in, she said, ‘I am Akeelah.’”
A thoughtful and measured speaker with a quick wit, Jasmine is composed beyond her years. As she sits in a chair inside the Greater Baton Rouge Arts Council office for our interview, she smiles and adjusts her glasses, happy to chat about her dreams of making scientific breakthroughs one day. She is quick to emphasize that she doesn’t just want to write—she wants to be a bestseller.
She plans to keep channeling her talent into acting for years to come, too.
“Being able to express my creativity, but through a different character, that’s what I really like about acting,” Jasmine says.
And so far, it looks like this creative genius has what it takes.
SEE THE PLAY
New Venture Theatre’s Akeelah and the Bee will run May 5-7 at the LSU Shaver Theatre. Visit newventuretheatre.org for ticket info.
This article was originally published in the May 2017 issue of 225 Magazine.
