Twelve-year-old Katie-Louise Shalka-Fisher is staring in Andrew Lloyd Webber's West End production of The Sound of Music at the London Palladium.

Katie-Louise, a pupil at King Solomon High School in Essex, plays Louisa von Trapp, one of the von Trapp family children. "It's really fun and really good," Katie-Louise tells People. She was one of 850 hopefuls to audition for the role. "All the cast are really nice - like one big family. Everyone talks to each other and are all really good friends."

Katie-Louise has previously stared in the children's choir of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and performed at festivals in Redbridge, Wembley Arena and the Royal Albert Hall, London. She attends Nicola's School of Dance in Chigwell and hopes to become a regular fixture on the West End stage.

She says: "My family has come to see me and Jewish Care's Sinclair House youth group also came to see me, and my friends are going to come."

Katie-Louise, who performs three shows a week, says she has not been missing too much school. "While I was doing the rehearsals over eight weeks I had to have a bit of private tutoring, but it's summer holidays at the moment. I do three days of shows and then have six days off."

Would she like to do this as a career? "Yes, I love singing, dancing and acting."
Home is in Newbury Park, where she lives with her mother, step-father and two brothers.

Katie-Louise will be staring in the show until November. Her next performance is on September 8.