Which sytycd dancers are in newsies

Ephraim: None of his choreo is arbitrary. Ryan: Aaron is definitely the big brother. Aaron: Alex is the secret teenybopper! Aaron: And Ryan is the most popular. We have these Newsies trading cards, and his is the most requested. Everyone loves Specs! Ephraim: Oh my gosh, Alex played the worst prank on me our first week in the theater! I locked my door and told the stage manager that I thought I had a stalker!

Ryan: Yup, we all do. The sweetest letter I got said a little boy had started taking dance classes after seeing us in the show. The call came after a lengthy audition process with Spielberg in the room, and the role, originated by Wilma Curley on Broadway in and later portrayed by Gina Trikonis in the film, was her biggest dream. In fact, it's something Garcia-Lee says she manifested from the day plans for the movie were announced in January On top of her regular training, she would travel multiple hours each day to New York City and New Jersey for classes with Steps on Broadway and the Princeton Ballet School, respectively.

Her bedroom walls were lined with cutouts from the pages of Dance Spirit , which served as inspiration for her goals. Her mother, Terri Garcia, was a professional dancer in the s she even danced Francisca in the West Side Story tour in , and Garcia-Lee was eager to follow in her footsteps.

Garcia-Lee went to high school at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, where she studied first ballet and then drama. As a sophomore, she was cast as Graziella in her school's production of West Side Story. The magic of performing Jerome Robbins' iconic choreography never left her. She's been banging on West Side Story 's door ever since. All the while, she held out hope that West Side Story would someday come her way.

In , Garcia-Lee was considered for Graziella in the Broadway revival but didn't get the role after countless callbacks. After that, two more productions didn't cast her as Graziella.

For the Broadway revival, she was only offered the opportunity to audition for the role of Anybodys. She turned down both opportunities in favor of other projects—she would wait for Graziella. Despite the rejection, she was undeterred. So when Deadline published an article announcing the film remake, Garcia-Lee felt that playing Graziella was meant to be. At the audition, the casting room was filled with many of her friends and fellow Broadway darlings, like Eloise Kropp Cats and Jonalyn Saxer Mean Girls.

According to the film's choreographer, Justin Peck, Garcia-Lee quickly caught the eye of the creative team. I could sense that from the first audition. At the same time, she was committed to the Broadway run of Moulin Rouge! She spent much of the winter and early spring of trying to figure out how to do it all.

She asked if she could miss some rehearsals and most preview performances including the all-important first preview performance so she could film her scenes in the movie. I'll never forget Steven up on a ladder, then Steven halfway down the ladder, and then Steven on a rolling chair, Steven lying on the floor looking up at [the choreography] this way, Justin tweaking and tweaking.

Rehearsals for the iconic "Dance at the Gym" scene lasted two weeks. Before the work began, Garcia-Lee says, she familiarized herself with Peck's work as much as she could to get a sense of his style. However, I loved the challenge of it. Once rehearsals wrapped, filming for "Dance at the Gym" lasted six days, and according to Garcia-Lee, her feet never hurt so badly in her entire life. But that didn't stop her from soaking up the magic. Especially on the day she and her co-star Mike Faist Riff shot their duet.

We lost ourselves in the art. We finally got to the end of [the take and] Mike and I fell to the floor. Steven ran over to us, dove on the floor with us and smothered us with love.

It was magic. But all those celebratory can-can kicks came to a crashing halt in March when the pandemic hit, just as she felt she was "stepping into the height of her career. Though she thankfully recovered, she was left wondering what the future would hold. Several months later, it was announced that West Side Story 's release was going to be pushed back a year.

Garcia-Lee spent her days volunteering at a horse stable in Brooklyn. It was the first time in decades she found the time to get back into the saddle like she did as a kid growing up close to the Bucks County farms. She found solace and comfort around the horses. Then, with the help of her dad, she drove across the country to L. She wanted to focus on acting and find something new to give her purpose.

But that doesn't mean she let go of dance. As studios resumed in-person classes, Garcia-Lee returned to the dance floor. The learning curve right now is having a lot of grace with myself. When it comes to professional work, Garcia-Lee's been auditioning for film and TV projects while cultivating the next phase of her career. She also dreams of playing Roxie in Chicago on Broadway. After a yearlong delay, she is physically and mentally ready to celebrate playing Graziella.

The timing is exactly right. Photo by Jayme Thornton. The first step: designing dance apparel that matched more than just white skin tones. The second: expanding her color-inclusive brand into a robust social justice platform.

That social network, she says, provides young people a space to connect around causes of shared interest—to volley ideas, support each other's efforts, publish articles, and air podcasts. Nia, who would later enlist her sister, Justice, to help grow the brand, contends that this work is just the beginning.

It was great. It was like really cute. I mean, I was terrified of showing my butt to the world. NH : I feel like I ended up wearing a lot of just pants.

EK : Hmmm. Favorite costumes? I didn't really think about that stuff. NH : I liked your suit and tie ones, like when you're all done up and you do your little Broadway solos. EK : [Laughs. NH : Yeah, your solo costumes, those are cool. EK : Thanks, man. NH : No problem. JL : I was about to say that you [Neil] having no shirt regularly was me being in a suit all the time. NH : That's true.

JL : But the one that I liked was [when] Tyce Diorio did a circus piece, and he had me be the Master of Ceremonies so I had a nice tail jacket and stuff. What's your favorite dance you've gotten to do on Broadway?

I went on one time and got to do it. What was a harder audition? JL : And, it's not everyday that you have cameras in your faces… NH : …while you're collapsing.

And they're like, "Are you ok? Go away. It was a very minor injury and I just had an ice pack on me, and I had a camera, a cameraman and a producer right in front of me. EK : They want to catch everything. JL : Yeah, they want to catch every glimpse of the whole audition process, so they will do it, and if they want to find a way to put it on TV, they will.

AD : Crying, too. I was always crying. EK : That's all right, they play that clip of me and my brother before Top 20, the two of us crying; that's like their favorite clip to play. NH : Oh God. Did they do that thing where they split you guys up and it was one or the other for the last [spot on the show]? EK : Yes. NH : Oh God! JL : Ugh. AD : That's so awful! AD : It gave me the best audition training possible. JL : Oh yeah! AD : Point blank. I mean, to me the experience on the show doesn't compare to eight shows a week, but at least the audition process, I'm like, "I can pretty much handle anything now.

NH : I'd say the picking up of choreo. Like if somebody needs you to jump into a show last minute. We only had two days on the show to learn the choreography for a three-minute dance, and you normally learned it in one day and just rehearsed it the next day.

EK : Yeah, you have like five hours total. NH : Yeah, so I think the ability and the confidence to be able to pick up the choreography quickly and perform it three days later is one of the better things I got. EK : Yeah, like they both said, the audition process. You're picking up choreography so fast on the show, and that's important for auditions.

Also, the endurance, both mental and physical. JL : Stamina, that's for sure. It was like my own life story. He rattles off a list of places the tour has already taken him. Wisconsin, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Omaha. I always wanted to challenge myself. This show does that every day. Facebook Twitter Email.

Art imitating life in 'Newsies'.