popular film<\/a> in 2017 starring Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson as Auggie’s parents.<\/p>\nMuch of the story is about Auggie’s year at school, where the science whiz and \u201cStar Wars\u201d fan initially endures stares from fellow students and uncomfortable questions about his face. He considers dropping out of school at one point but, thanks to a few friends and his family, perseveres and is awarded a medal at graduation for his strength and courage.<\/p>\n
The musical also considers Auggie’s experience from the perspective of those around him, including his sister Via who feels overshadowed by her brother and the struggle of his parents to both protect Auggie and give him greater independence. There’s also Jack, who becomes Auggie’s best friend only to betray him to score points with popular kids. He ends up reconciling with Auggie, choosing to do his science project with him rather than the school bully.<\/p>\n
A softer world<\/p>\n
Director Taibi Magar encountered \u201cWonder\u201d during the height of the pandemic in 2021 when she wasn’t sure theater would return. Magar was offered a proposal to turn \u201cWonder\u201d into a musical and came to appreciate how the story shows people a way to live that is \u201ca little softer and a little kinder.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was pretty sad and the world was feeling really cold and mean,\u201d Magar, who earlier directed \u201cNight Side Songs; The Half-God of Rainfall\u201d and \u201cMacbeth In Stride; We Live in Cairo,\u201d at the theater. \u201cThen I got a phone call from my agent to take a look at this material, and it just cracked me open.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the early challenges was finding young actors with facial conditions to portray Auggie. The movie features an actor without any facial condition, who portrayed the boy wearing makeup and prosthetics.<\/p>\n
Matthew Joffee, a consultant on the project who is a retired therapist and learning disability specialists, argued the role should go to someone with a facial difference. As someone who has a facial condition known as Moebius syndrome, Joffee feared giving the role to an actor without one risked \u201calienating\u201d that community.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were so desperate to get actors that will be able to play the role. They were willing to consider looking for actors and just making them up, and I put my own foot down,\u201d he said. \u201cThe community would be completely outraged to know that an actor with a craniofacial condition wasn\u2019t being used.\u201d<\/p>\n
First night jitters<\/p>\n
In the end, the production found Voehl and McNally for the part of Auggie, whom Magar described as \u201ctwo extraordinary actors.\u201d<\/p>\n
McNally, a 16-year-old from California who had never acted before, saw the post on a Facebook group for the role and thought it would be fun to audition. He related to Auggie, he said, because of how people look at him \u201cdifferently\u201d and sometimes don’t treat him as \u201cnormal\u201d person.<\/p>\n
When he got on a Zoom call to learn that he was headed to the Northeast to be in major musical, he was thrilled \u2014 but a little anxious that first night.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was nervous because I thought I would mess up or get stage fright, but it generally went pretty smoothly, except for that one time where I hit my shin on one of the tables,\u201d McNally said \u201cOther than that, it was a really good show and I was really proud of myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moms there for support<\/p>\n
Sitting beside the new star was his mother Jules McNally, who never doubted her son’s potential but was surprised that he was \u201ccapable of such dedication and commitment\u201d to the part. As the audiences watches her son, whom she described \u201cas his own unique person,\u201d she hopes the play moves people to act.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want people to leave the show taking the things that they felt, the empathy that they experienced,\u201d she said. \u201cI want them to go out into their own communities and do what they need to do to make people feel safe and accepted and welcome.\u201d<\/p>\n
Garrett McNally and Voehl also seem to appreciate how the role of Auggie gives them an unexpected platform to change perceptions about those with facial differences.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m making a difference in helping people understand that even though some people may look different or have like a facial difference, we are all in the end the same the on inside,\u201d Voehl said. \u201cIt does not matter what we look like because we are all human.\u201d<\/p>\n
Young students cheer for Auggie<\/p>\n
At one of the last performances, hundreds of screaming school children filled the theater. The show ended a two-month run on Feb. 15. Many, like Dylan Marion, a 14-year-old from Malden, Massachusetts lined up afterward for autographs \u2014 getting seven actors to sign a hard copy of the book. Many had read the book in school and were quick to compare the narrative with what they saw on stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cI loved it. It was amazing,\u201d said Aili Sparandara, a 10-year-old from a school in Cambridge, whose entire grade read the novel. \u201cIt\u2019s nice how he has people out there who can help him. It was a lot of equality. I like it. This book is based on someone with differences that can be shown. It\u2019s not like everybody in every book has to be perfect.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.clickondetroit.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CAMBRIDGE, Mass. \u2013 When Max Voehl auditioned to play a young boy in the musical \u201cWonder,\u201d he sensed he was playing a version of himself on stage. Voehl, who was born with a bilateral cleft lip and palate, has endured multiple surgeries like Auggie Pullman \u2014 13 to Auggie’s 28. The 12-year-old from Utah also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2295229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[444728,21741,444726,444729,345279,21818,444727,444730,363086,444725,30188],"class_list":["post-2295228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-dylan-marion","tag-entertainment","tag-garrett-mcnally","tag-jules-mcnally","tag-julia-roberts","tag-lifestyle","tag-matthew-joffee","tag-max-voehl","tag-owen-wilson","tag-raquel-j-palacio","tag-u-s-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/In-Wonder-the-musical-young-actors-with-facial-differences-find.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2295228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2295228"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2295228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2295230,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2295228\/revisions\/2295230"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2295229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2295228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2295228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2295228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}