INTERNATIONAL VIRTUAL LEARNING ACADEMY STUDENT
STARS IN FOX NETWORK’s 12/17 LIVE BROADCAST
OF
”A CHRISTMAS STORY”
HENDERSON, NEVADA, December 12, 2017 – Christmas came early this year for eleven-year-old Andy Walken, a distance learning student at the International Virtual Learning Academy (IVLA). Walken, who hails from Seattle Washington, received a phone call recently informing him that he had been selected from more than 350 age 9-12 kids auditioning for the role of Ralphie Parker in Fox Network’s December 17 live broadcast of A Christmas Story.
Andy, who has been a student at IVLA’s online academy since 2016, said when he received the news he had won the role, that his selection to star as Ralphie Parker was “the greatest, most awesome Christmas present I ever got in my life!” The eleven-year-old star has also appeared in an episode of NCIS in 2015 and in the 2017 movie “Escaping Dad.”
According to Fox Network, the live broadcast “is an adaptation of the musical from Tony and Oscar winner Benj Pasek and Justin Paul and will also star SNL and Bridesmaids favorite Maya Rudolph as Ralphie’s mother and two-time Tony winner Matthew Broderick as the grown-up Ralphie, who narrates the holiday favorite.” The original film dropped in 1983 and starred Peter Billingsley as Ralphie, an Indiana boy who very much wants a Red Ryder Range model Carbine Action BB Gun for Christmas.