Page 4 - Hawaii Island MidWeek - May 19, 2021

4 HAWAI‘I ISLAND MIDWEEK MAY 19, 2021
Hawai‘i’s premier young thespian Kailee Brandt appears perfectly suited for a life in the bright lights.
When Kailee Brandt was 3, she began tagging along with her dad on water skiing outings in upstate New York. Perched upon his shoulders, she would spend days on end skimming along smooth stretches of the trout-filled waters at Lake Ozonia. But rather than scream in fright or squeal in delight on these occasions, she would simply hold on to her father’s hair “as tightly as possible” and do the one thing that came most nat- urally to her.
“I’d sing,” says Kailee.
Well, “the weird kid” has grown up into something quite wonderful — and not just as
Those are mighty big dreams indeed, but Kailee understands the challenging
“My dad was actually Mr. Musical Theater out of high school and in college, and it’s actually kind of funny
Not surprisingly, her num- ber of admirers grows by the day. Within the ranks is Broadway veteran and Tony
Fifteen years later, the notes are still flowing from her
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mouth. Whether it’s vocaliz- ing her favorite tunes from the movie Mamma Mia! or belting out melodies from Broadway musicals such as Wicked, Kail- ee is perfectly willing to sing at all times and in any setting — even while traveling down a lake at 35 mph.
a singer, but as an actor, too. With more than a dozen mu- sicals and 200 performances under her belt, this year’s win- ner of the Hawai‘i Thespians Festival Scholarship for high schoolers is unquestionably the islands’ foremost young performer.
road ahead. Her fa-
ther, Randy Brandt,
is a regional Emmy Award-winning di-
rector and writer who produced the TV program Hawaiian Moving Co. for 20 years and who cur- rently works for shows such as Entertainment Tonight, Good Morning America and Dateline. As part of the enter- tainment industry for decades, he’s warned her in the past about the potential pitfalls of the profession.
“I was always considered the weird kid in school,” she admits with a chuckle. “I would always be singing — on the swings, at recess, ev- erywhere. People thought I was so crazy because I knew every single song to Wicked!”
Naturally, the teenager with the big voice has got big plans for the future — one that in- cludes taking up permanent residence in the city that never sleeps and eventually basking in the bright lights of Broad- way.
To her credit, Kailee refused to give up on her dream, and once her parents — which include mother Nancy, who serves as theater operations coordinator at Punahou — realized their daughter was serious about a career in mu- sical theater, they “became my biggest supporters.”
Kailee Brandt’s “biggest supporters” are parents Nancy and Randy.
PHOTO COURTESY RANDY BRANDT
because he tried to talk me out of choosing this business when I first started thinking about pursuing theater. He knows the entertainment in- dustry is far from easy, so he was kind of hoping I would find a different passion and pursue that, ” explains Kailee, a Punahou senior and current school thespian troupe presi- dent who will be matriculating at Syracuse University in the fall and studying in its theater program.
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