My Broadway Dreams

Meet our award winning faculty, straight from Broadway!      

Billy Porter

Broadway credits include: Miss Saigon, Five Guys Named Moe, Grease (All Original Cast), Smokey Joe’s Cafe and Dreamgirls (20th Anniversary Broadway Concert and LA Ovation Award. Off Broadway and Regional credits: Romance in Hard Times, The Merchant of Venice, House of Lear and Radiant Baby (NY Shakespeare Festival), Angels in America (Theatre of Louisvile), Going Native (The Long Wharf), Jason Robert Brown’s Songs For A New World, Jesus Christ Superstar, Antigone, A Chorus Line, Chicago. His concert credits include: Opening Act for Rosie O’Donnel & Aretha Franklin, Carnegie Hall, John McDaniel and St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, as well as The Buffalo Philharmonic, Peter Nero and The Philly Pops, Solist for Bill Clinton and various AIDS benefits throughout the U.S. His recordings include: Debut Solo CD, Untitled on A&M records, A Very Rosie Christmas, Jim Brickman - Destiny (Top Ten AC Hit); Grease (Revival Cast Album); Adam Guettel’s Myths & Hymns, Gershwin and Sondheim Benefit Albums, Hercules (Disney), Anastasia (Warner Bros.); Liz Callaway - The Story Goes On, Alvin Ailey/Revelations, Broadway Cares’ Home For The Holidays, Dreamgirls in Concert (Featured as James Thunder Early), HAIR (Actor’s Fund Benefit Recording), Great Joy: A Gospel Christmas and The Human Rights Campain’s, Love Rocks.

Eden Espinosa

Broadway credits include: BKLYN The Musical, Wicked, and Rent. Eden Espinosa is used to enchantment.  She began her career in Disneyland and is now spending a lot of time in Oz.  The Southern California Native is young at 27 but has blossomed into a Broadway star. Not bad for someone who played Pocahontas and the Little Mermaid in Disneyland shows, and then a hip, sassy fairy godmother in the Disney‘s California Adventure Revue called, “Steps In Time.”  She began singing at the age of three, performing at five, and recording at ten.  She made her Broadway debut covering the roles of Elphaba and Nessarose in Wicked.  She played the role of Brooklyn in the musical of the same name and she recently made her solo concert debut at New York’s Town Hall.  Espinosa was nominated for a 2005 Drama League Award for Distinguished Performance for playing the title role in BKLYN.

Paul Canaan

Most recently worked on an upcoming Broadway show Catch Me If You Can. Other Broadway credits include: Legally Blonde, Miss Saigon, Thoroughly Modern Millie, La Cage Aux Folles and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Also, the MTV series “Legally Blonde: The Search For Elle Woods” where he served as a judge alongside Bernie Telsey and Heather Hach.  He traveled in the National Tour of Annie Get Your Gun, and performed in the New York Radio City Christmas Spectacular. Regionally he’s been a dance captain at Paper Mill Playhouse, Robert Redford’s Sundance Theatre, Fords Theatre and many more.  He worked on the film Across The Universe directed by Julie Taymor, performed at the 2005 Tony Awards (’La Cage’ winner: Best Coreography) and is the annual announcer for Logo Networks’ “New Now Next Awards.”

Jeremy Schonfeld

Jeremy is a singer/songwriter/composer/lyricist.  A benefit concert version of his musical, Drift, was recently performed at B.B King’s, starring Adam Pascal, Julia Murney, Terrence Mann, Jarrod Emick, and Adam Kantor, among others, and will be remounted at North Carolina’s Hot Summer Nights at the Kennedy, September 2009, with Lauren Kennedy directing.  Upcoming theatrical projects include: the development of two new musical projects including one with director and producer Daisy Prince (Jason Robert Brown’s Last Five Years; John Bucchino’s It’s Only Life).  Other recent projects include: the album “37 Notebooks,” which featured the vocal talents of Shoshana Bean, Tracie Thoms, Amy Spanger, Luther Creek, and Kate Shindle, among others; the feature film, Clear Blue Tuesday; as well as the musicals, Home, and the innumerable atrainplays; and the Broadway Dreams Foundation’s Broadway Bootcamp, for which Jeremy serves as musical director.

Dave Barrus

A co-founder of The Broadway Dreams Foundation; Dave performed in the Broadway and National tour of Les Miserables. Regional credits include: the West Coast premiere of Songs from an Unmade Bed, The Full Monty, Jesus Christ Superstar, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Boys Next Door. Dave sang the title role in the animated feature The Scarecrow and was awarded the Pearl award for Best New Artist and Best Male Vocalist for his solo albums Onstage, and Onstage II. Dave currently acts and teaches in the Los Angeles area.

Nikki Snelson

Nikki Snelson s perhaps best known for originating the role of exercise queen Brooke Wyndam in Legally Blonde: The Musical. She can be heard on the cast recording of the show, and was also seen in the MTV Broadcast of the show, as well as the reality casting show Legally Blonde: The Musical: The Search for the Next Elle Woods. She received her training at the Boston Conservatory.

Other credits include: originating the role of Winnie Tate opposite Bernadette Peters in Annie Get Your Gun (musical), the 1999 Tony Award & Grammy Award winning revival. She has also appeared in Sweet Charity, the 2005 revival which starred Christina Applegate. Nikki has been seen several times on the small screen and television series, including guesting on Desperate Housewives.

She concluded her run as Cassie in the national tour of A Chorus Line (musical) in November 2008. Most recently, she appeared as the Mad Hatter in a workshop for the new Frank Wildhorn musical Wonderland:  Alice's New Musical Adventure, which is having its world premiere in November 2009 - January 2010 in Tampa, FL (and January through February 14, 2009 at Houston's Alley Theatre)

Carlos L. Encinias

Carlos recently returned from associate choreographing/directing the DC premiere of Altar Boyz, This summer he choreographed and associate directed Big River at Tuachan Center for the Arts in Southern Utah.  Carlos is originally from Albuquerque, New Mexico.  He studied theatre in Utah at BYU.  He recently associate directed/ choreographed the Adirondack Theatre Festival’s production of Altar Boyz.  He’s choreographed for the Red Mountain Theatre Company, Scera Theatre, New York Musical Theatre Festival, and the New Mexico Ballet Company.  He has been living in New York City since 2000, but before moving East, he worked at Opyrland USA, for Disney, and at Robert Redford’s Sundance Theatre with Maureen McGovern and Christopher Lloyd. He made his Broadway debut in Mamma Mia! and left to act in and supervise the short lived Broadway production of Good Vibrations, a musical based on Beach Boys music.  Carlos spend some time Off-Broadway with the award winning Altar Boyz where he was Dance Captain and stand by for the show, and this past winter was privileged to be in the final company of Les Miserables.

Lilli Cooper

Lilli made her Broadway debut as an original cast member in the Tony Award Winning Musical, Spring Awakening.  Other credits include: Spring Awakening (Atlantic Theater), Godspell, Goodbye My Island, Reel to Real, School at Steps Showcases, and Hair (LaGuardia Arts High School).  

Blake Daniel

Blake made his Broadway debut in the Tony Award winning Musical, Spring Awakening as the replacement for the character of Ernst.  Other professional credits include: Black Bear Dinner Theatre.  Blake is a former Broadway Dreams student.

Craig Burns

Craig Burns is a Casting Director at Telsey + Company in Manhattan. He has been with the office for over 10 years. His Broadway, Off-Broadway, and National Tour casting credits include 9 TO 5, WICKED, LEGALLY BLONDE, THE COLOR PURPLE, HAIRSPRAY, CRY-BABY, JERRY SPRINGER: THE OPERA, GREY GARDENS, TARZAN, SWEENEY TODD, ALL SHOOK UP, DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS, TABOO, LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW, AIDA, SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, and Andrew Lippa's THE WILD PARTY.  A Long Island native, he attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.

Rachel Hoffman

Rachel Hoffman, CSA, has worked in casting since 1999, and is currently at Telsey + Company, where she has been involved in the casting of Wicked, Rent, In The Heights, Hairspray, You’re Welcome America, Nine To Five, Next To Normal, Blithe Spirit, Legally Blonde, Equus, South Pacific, Catch Me if You Can, Rock Of Ages, Reasons To Be Pretty, The Color Purple, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Next To Normal, Speed-The-Plow, Company, Tarzan, Boys’ Life, Grey Gardens, The Fantasticks, Bette Midler: The Showgirl Must Go On, Cinderella, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Sweeney Todd, The Unauthorized Autobiography of Samantha Brown, Nerds (at Philadelphia Theatre Company), Sex An The City  (film), Rachel Getting Married (film), Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera’s 2009 summer season, Peep Show (Las Vegas) and upcoming companies of Memphis, The Addams Family, Spiderman, Love Never Dies, My Man Godfrey, Minsky’s, Elf as well as numerous readings and commercials.  Some of the other shows she has worked on include The Boy from Oz, Brooklyn, Bat Boy: the Musical, Altar Boyz, Children of Eden (at The Ford’s Theatre), The Full Monty (at North Shore Music Theatre) and Godspell (2000 Off-Broadway Revival at the York Theatre).  She lectures and teaches audition workshops on musical theatre performing/auditioning at many colleges and universities around the US and produces senior showcases in NYC for graduating classes of some of the top musical theatre departments.  Prior to casting, she worked as a performer in NYC, and received her BFA in Musical Theatre from the University of Michigan.

Jamie Harris

Jamie Harris has been part of the theatre and dance community of New York for the past eighteen years. He performed in Radio City Music Hall's Christmas Spectacular for seven years, as well as in a national tour of A Chorus Line, the world premiere of The Rhythm Club, and Funny Girl: In Concert on Broadway. His choreography credits include the Asia tour of Making Tracks (Assistant Choreographer), Empty Handed (with the original cast of Avenue Q) and John Tartaglia's AD-LIBerty at Joe's Pub. Television and film credits include The Producers,The Last Days of Disco and Saturday Night Live. After receiving his Bachelor's in Theatre Arts from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Jamie joined the New York office of Clear Talent Group in 2003 and became an agent in 2005.