This time last year, Melinda Hancsicsak was helping the PTO with Donuts for Dads and Muffins for Moms at Helmers Elementary, and her daughter, Mackenzie, was set to star in a Canyon Theatre Guild summer camp production.
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And then the phone rang.
The first time Melinda received the call about an audition for “This is Us” for Mackenzie, the 9-year-old was set to play the lead in a performance called “Munchkin Mediation,” a play on the “Wizard of Oz” — that same day.
Fairly new to the Hollywood “scene,” Melinda didn’t realize how unheard of it was to ask the show’s award-winning producers — Dan Fogelman and Ken Olin, not exactly lightweights — if the tryout could be rescheduled.
Luckily for the Hancsicsaks, the producers didn’t mind, and instead of noon, Mackenzie auditioned after her wrap party for the local camp play.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Melinda shuttled Mackenzie across Los Angeles to a casting two hours after her show, and she ended up auditioning for about a half-hour with the boys who would end up playing her brothers on the show.
By the end of the tryout, the three children were performing improv comedy together about ice cream, Mackenzie said, which was a new skill.
After about three months and 12 episodes in (the show aired Sept. 20, and was renewed for two more seasons last week), Mackenzie, a fourth-grader at Charles Helmers Elementary, said her favorite part was still the pool episode. (The show constantly flashes back and forth between a family in the 80s with three small children and then forward to the current day, and Mackenzie plays a younger “Kate,” or Chrissy Metz).
An only child in real life, Mackenzie has also really enjoyed having fun with her two new on-screen brothers, play by Lonnie Chavis and Parker Bates.
The older stars, like Milo Ventimiglia, have been extremely nice and supportive, Melinda added, offering to review lines and even bringing treats for the younger stars and surprises for the crew.
“She’s getting such an amazing first time,” Melinda said, “the hair and makeup crew, the cast, everybody’s just been really nice.”