Paige Hallett couldn’t resist trying out. She’d loved The Wizard of Oz since the age of 9, when she first saw it performed live.

“I was mesmerised,” said the 27-year-old who stars as Dorothy in the Gilbert & Sullivan production, which opens tonight.

“It was the first play I ever saw that was aimed at my age level. It really triggered my desire to be in theatre.”

Even though she’d studied at Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, Ms Hallett wasn’t certain she’d get the part she wanted as 100 people turned up to audition at City Hall, hoping for a role.

She tried to sing Somewhere Over the Rainbow like Judy Garland, who played Dorothy in the 1939 Academy Award-winning film.

“She was only 17 when she made the movie, but she had quite a mature voice,” said Ms Hallett. “But they didn’t want me to sing like that. They wanted me to sound younger.

“During the callbacks I really thought my chances were slim. I was up against some stiff competition. A lot of the girls trying out were teenagers. Dorothy is a 14-year-old girl, and I’m 27.”

The classic film is based on L. Frank Baum’s popular children’s novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and follows Dorothy and her dog Toto after a tornado whisks through Kansas and transports them to the magical land of Oz.

There, they meet a cast of characters including a Cowardly Lion searching for courage, a Tin Man in need of a heart and a Scarecrow looking for a brain, as they travel the Yellow Brick Road to Emerald City in search of the Wizard, and the Wicked Witch of the West.

The first time Ms Hallett saw it, she was terrified. “I was 6,” she said.

“My mother picked it up from the video store thinking it would be good to watch. I wasn’t scared by the witch, you always knew she wouldn’t win in the end, but I didn’t like the flying monkeys or the Winkies, the guards.”

She was 14 before she could watch the entire movie without covering her face. “But movie fans will probably be most happy with the play,” she said. “They will recognise all the sounds and the imagery.”

The challenge she faces as Dorothy is remembering that she’s playing a teenager rather than a contemporary.

“I have to keep the physicality and mindset of a 14-year-old,” she said. “It takes some concentrations. The director, Nina French, will sometimes say, ‘She’s 14. Stop being so cynical!’”

All the iconic songs will be in the play but there are also moments when Gilbert & Sullivan does its own thing.

“It is nice to do something so classic,” she said. “The imagery in it is so recognisable.”

Che Barker plays the Tin Man, Maxwell King the Lion and Angelis Hunt the Scarecrow. Zoe O’Connor will play Dorothy during the Sunday matinee.

The Wizard of Oz opens tonight at the Earl Cameron Theatre and runs until October 14. Shows start at 2pm and 7pm. Tickets are available on www.ptix.bm for $55. For more information see www.gands.bm.