Lyric Opera 2018-2019 Issue 14 West Side Story

P R O F I L E S | L Y R I C O P E R A O F C H I C A G O May 3 - June 2, 2019 | 23 JEFFREY C. SOUSA* ( Diesel ) has appeared on Broadway in Aladdin , Gigi , and An American in Paris . He played Bolo in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s revision of West Side Story for a national tour that played in more than 40 cities, and he has also toured nationally in the Troika Entertainment production of Evita . Among the dance companies with which he has performed are Armitage Gone! Dance in New York, the Pennsylvania Ballet, and the LifeDance Company. Sousa earned a B. F. A. degree at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Jet Girls SHANNON ALVIS ( Clarice ) has appeared in six Lyric productions, most recently My Fair Lady. After training at Butler University and the University of Utah, she began her career with the second com- pany of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, then danced with HSDC for nine years. In 2009 she joined Nederlands Dans eater, touring nation- ally and internationally. She has taught at the Jo rey Academy, Interlochen School for the Arts (summer faculty), and currently with Chicago’s Visceral Dance Center. A winner of the Jo rey’s Winning Work’s Choreographic Competition, she has choreographed for VDC, odos Dance Chicago, and DanceWorks Chicago. VERONICA SOFIA BURT * ( Velma ) is a Brooklyn-based, Los Angeles bred artist. Burt has per- formed with the Shakespeare eatre Company ( Camelot ) and Washington National Opera ( Eugene Onegin, La traviata ) as well as in summer stock at the beloved New London Barn and as a singer/dancer for Norwegian Cruise Lines. A Dartmouth College graduate, she also trained at the London Academy of Dramatic Art, the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and Alonzo King's LINES Ballet. She also currently works in the burgeoning eld of intimacy direction and advocating for arts education in public schools and beyond. PAIGE FRASER* ( Minnie ) graduated cum laude from the Ailey/Fordham B. F. A. program. A founding dancer of Visceral Dance Chicago and former member of Ailey II, she has guested with Deeply Rooted Dance eater and Ruth Page Civic Ballet. Fraser has done commercial work for Beyoncé and Chanel Iman, and was featured in international campaigns with INTEL, ESPN Latin America, and ELLE Magazine. She received a 2016 Dance Fellowship from the Princess Grace Foundation- USA and was cited among Dance Magazine ’s “25 to Watch” in 2017. ALEXA MAGRO * ( Anybodys ) has appeared in 17 productions at Houston’s eatre Under the Stars, among them Memphis, All Shook Up, Into the Woods , and Oliver. She danced in Sleeping Beauty with Lythgoe Family Panto (Los Angeles) and onstage for the John Kander 90th birthday celebration at Broadway’s Ambassador Theatre. In the high-school editions of musicals produced by i eatrics in New York, she portrayed Anita/ West Side Story (choreographed by Julio Monge) and Kristine/ A Chorus Line (choreographed by Baayork Lee). Magro just completed her freshman year as a musical theater major/dance minor at Otterbein University (Westerville, Ohio). KYRA SORCE * ( Graziella ) attended Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of Performing Arts, working towards a B. F. A. degree in musical theater and dance. She has also participated in summer programs of Jo rey Jazz and Contemporary Dance and Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet. Important performance credits include Symphony of Psalms (Netherlands Dans eatre at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles), Mamma Mia (Drury Lane eatre), Oklahoma! and Sweet Charity (Marriott eatre), Lysistrata Jones (Refuge Theatre project), Chess (Porchlights Revisits Series), West Side Story, Mamma Mia, and Newsies (Rocky Mountain Repertory eatre), and the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. ALYSSA SARNOFF ( Pauline ), who has appeared at Lyric in Carousel (debut) and e Merry Widow , previously appeared in West Side Story as Graziella at Connecticut Repertory eatre, where she also portrayed Hannah/ Newsies . She was associate director/cho- reographer for Charlotte d’Amboise’s production of Chicago at the Show Palace eatre (Hudson, Florida), and has served as associate choreographer to Christopher d’Amboise on the new musical Me…Jane , premiering last season at the Kennedy Center. She performed with the Metropolitan Opera Children’s Chorus in more than a dozen productions, including several featured roles. Sarno is an alumna of Northwestern University. Sharks GREG BLACKMON * ( Anxious ) has performed in the Chicago area at Drury Lane eatre ( Beauty and the Beast ), Chicago Repertory Ballet, and DanceWorks Chicago (he is the rst DWC alumnus to choreo- graph for the company). He has also appeared in New York (Complexions Contemporary Ballet, Opus Dance eater Company), Memphis (Collage Dance Collective), Kansas City (Owen/ Cox Dance Group), and Detroit (Eisenhower Dance). He trained at e Ailey School (including two summer intensives, the fellowship program, and independent study), Dance eatre of Harlem (scholarship program and ensemble apprentice) and Deeply Rooted Dance eater (summer program). MARK DELER* ( Pepe, u/s Bernardo ) reprises a role previ- ously performed at the Guthrie eatre. He appeared as both Inca and Bernardo in Troika Entertainment’s national West Side Story tour, and was part of the Shark ensemble for the developmental lab of director Ivo van Hove’s and choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker’s upcoming Broadway production. Deler has also been seen as Goodspeed Musicals (Joe/ Oklahoma! ) and Lubbock Musicals (Macavity and Admetus/ Cats ). He trained at the University of Illinois Urbana- Champaign, where he earned a B. F. A. in dance. He continues to train in New York with choreog- rapher Max Stone. SEBASTIAN GARCIA* ( Toro ) is currently completing his training at the Rock School for Dance Education, having previously studied at the American Ballet Theater Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School and the Harlem School of the Arts. New York appearances include Jessica Lang’s e Gift (Lincoln Center, world premiere); Saks Fifth Avenue’s Holiday Spectacular; three Alvin Ailey galas; and e SomeWhere Project (Carnegie Hall). Garcia has worked with such major dancers and choreographers as Alessandra Ferri, Julio Bocca, Julio Bonge, and Alexei Ratmansky. He received the En Avant Award in 2017 from classical ballet’s En Avant Foundation.