Joshua Bergasse is a NYC based teacher and choreographer and has been a member of the Broadway Dance Center Faculty since 1998. Josh is the choreographer of the upcoming NBC series SMASH produced by Steven Spielberg and starring Angelica Huston, Debra Messing, Megan Hilty and Katherine McPhee. This summer Josh choreographed a group routine for the top ten dancers on FOX’s So You Think You Can Dance.
Other credits as a choreographer include: American Songbooks; Fascinatin Rhythm (Allen Room, Jazz @ Lincoln Center); The Face of Tisch, Gala 2010 (Rose Hall, Jazz @ Lincoln Center); Captain Louis (Little Shubert, York Theater); and Fame The Musical (National & International Tours).
Joshua has performed in the Broadway and/or National touring companies of Movin’ Out, Hairspray, The Life, and West Side Story. Josh is the artistic director for the Musical Theater Performance Project at BDC, and has been a guest artist at NYU, Marymount Manhattan College, Indiana University, James Madison University, Shenandoah University, Kean University, Creighton University and the University of California Satellite program. He’s toured with Manhattan DanceProject, West Coast Dance Explosion, and Tremaine.
Paulette Haupt is co-founder and Artistic Director of the O’Neill’s National Music Theater Conference since 1978, Paulette Haupt has selected and guided the development of more than one hundred new music theater works, including Desire Under the Elms, Nine, Captains Courageous, Avenue X, Violet, The Wild Party, The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin, Radiant Baby, Avenue Q, and In The Heights. An associate producer for Polly Pen’s first musical, Goblin Market, she has commissioned, developed and produced new works for OPERA America, The National Alliance for Musical Theater, Columbia Artists Management, and the Lake George Opera Festival. In 2001, she and Edward Trach founded PREMIERS, established to commission, develop and promote new music theater works in New York City.
The first woman to conduct at the San Francisco Opera, for three decades she conducted a diverse repertoire of world premieres, musical theater and operas worldwide, including Alaska, China, Russia, India, New York, the Kennedy Center, and opera and music theater companies nationwide. In 2002, she was the associate conductor for the Grammy nominated recording of Joe Masteroff and Edward Thomas’ Desire Under the Elms, featuring the London Symphony Orchestra and Metropolitan Opera stars James Morris, Victoria Livengood and Jerry Hadley.
Karen Mason has starred in major productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, television, and in recordings. She is a ten-time MAC Award winner, including six consecutive years as recipient of the award for Major Female Vocalist of the Year. She has originated many iconic theater roles including The Queen of Hearts in Wonderland and Tanya in Mamma Mia! Other leading roles have included Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, which she performed to critical acclaim and standing ovations on Broadway and in Los Angeles for three years, Velma von Tussel in Hairspray, Mazeppa in Jerome Robbins’ Broadway, Rosalie in Carnival, and others. She won the Outer Critics Circle Award for her performance in And the World Goes ‘Round, and a 2002 Drama Desk nomination as Best Actress.
She has appeared in many television dramas (including the hit drams Ed, and Law & Order: SVU) and in regional theatre, and has headlined at Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, and many other famous venues. She has shared concert stages with Luciano Pavarotti, Rosemary Clooney, Liza Minnelli, Michael Feinstein, Jerry Herman, among others, and has given concerts in the United Kingdom, Sweden, Brazil, Scotland, Tokyo, and Osaka. Mason starred in many symphonic performances in the U.S.
In addition to her live performances, her voice graces the soundtrack of Jeffrey, the studio cast recording of Wonderful Town, the original cast album of And The World Goes ‘Round, The Child in Me, and Lost in Boston II. CD’s include Sweetest of Nights, When The Sun Comes Out, Better Days, Not So Simply Broadway, and Christmas! Christmas! Christmas!
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