Kate Rancka's got the chops. Now all she needs is the votes.
The 17-year-old vocalist with the incredible breadth of talent and experience is nine spots away from winning a guest role on the hit television show "Glee." Of the 4,625 people who have submitted online audition tapes to a worldwide contest, Rancka ranks 10th. The contest runs through Nov. 13.
"I've been singing all my life," she said after a Thursday morning practice at Chesterfield County's Thomas Dale High School with her vocal coach, Tonya Cory. In a matter of minutes, Rancka, a senior, seamlessly moved from the challenge of an opera piece to a fun, if even more challenging, Broadway show tune.
The daughter of professional musicians — her father plays trumpet, her mother the clarinet — has been "singing since I was born."
In recent years, those songs have been showstoppers. Last year, she stole the show as Tracy in Thomas Dale's version of "Hairspray." On Thursday, a warmup performance in an auxiliary auditorium did the trick.
In the hallway outside the room, junior Meghan Canty stopped in her tracks when Rancka began belting out the Mozart opera piece "Ach, ich fühl's."
Quite the performer herself — Canty is about to take the stage as Belle in Dale's performance of "Beauty and the Beast" — she stopped and clasped her hands over chest.
"Oh, that's amazing," she said. "To be able to hear that, here, it's wonderful."
Pamela Barton, the coordinator of the Chesterfield County Specialty Center for the Visual & Performing Arts, which is based at Dale, said that even in a program with 240 talented students, Rancka stood out.
"She's a polished professional already," she said. "The range she can do is incredible, and she's got her feet on the ground with what she wants to accomplish in life."
In the years ahead, Rancka said, she would like to polish her opera enough that she'd be worthy of performing at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York or, in the dream of lifetime, singing at Teatro Alla Scala in Milan, Italy.
For now, she's hoping enough voters click on her name that she wins the "Glee" contest.
"Oh, I love the show," she said.
Making the cut would be special, she said. But whether or not she gets the spot, she's still singing, any song, any time.
"That's me," she said. "That's what I'm known for, my breadth. I love opera, but I can do a mean Carrie Underwood, too."
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