Local girl acts out her Broadway dreams

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

By Grace Hammond

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-It was just a hop, skip and a jump from off Broadway in Jackson Hole to Broadway in New York City for 12-year-old Sascha Peralta-Ramos.

The seventh-grader’s performances with the Off Square Theatre Company served as a springboard that catapulted her from roles in small, down-home Jackson Hole productions to a reading in the heart of New York City.

Her talent and dedication to the arts is in the family. Sascha’s mother, Cynda Peralta-Ramos, was in Off Square’s “Crazy Love” this summer. Roy Miller, the producer of “The Drowsy Chaperone,” currently enjoying a popular run on Broadway (the NYC one), came out to watch the show and “see if they wanted to take it to Broadway,” Sascha said. “He met me and we talked.”

The family was already planning a late-season trip to New York. Miller suggested that Sascha use the opportunity to audition for his new musical, “Writing Arthur.”
At the end of August, Sascha went to read in front of Miller, the writer David Austin and Jennifer Maloney, the producer of other current Broadway shows including “Legally Blonde” and “Spring Awakening.”

“Every year they pick eight shows [to consider for Broadway] and perform 45-minute versions of them,” Sascha said. “I was in New York acting in the reading and also auditioning with an agent, Nancy Carson, one of the top children’s agents in New York.”

Sascha is a member of local Off Square youth troupe “the Off Square Players,” an eight-member auditioned group. She also belongs to Dancers’ Workshop’s Junior Repertory Company – another entry-by-audition troupe.

According to her mother, “This is the first time these two nonprofits have worked together to help children who want to do both dance and musical theater.”

Sascha is as home-grown as it gets. “My first show was a kindergarten play in Jackson,” she said. “I’ve always loved [acting] since then, and I did a lot with Off Square.”
Recent roles have included parts in “Annie” and last spring’s “Peter Pan.” As strong as her local roots are, she “definitely” wants to move to New York to realize her singing and acting dreams.

The middle-schooler squeezes academics into her busy schedule, with one or two dance classes and often a rehearsal scheduled immediately after school is done for the day. At the moment, she’s in “Romeo and Juliet” and “The Wizard of Oz” – “One with dance and one with the acting company,” she said – and when she gets home from her activities, usually around 8:30 p.m., she switches into academic mode and sits down with her homework.

Broadway has “always been a goal of mine,” said Sascha. “I never really thought I would make it until pretty recently. As I kept taking classes, I felt like I was getting better and my confidence grew in that area. I’ve just always wanted to do it.”

The outcome of her reading for “Writing Arthur” isn’t yet known. In the meantime Sascha will return to New York in November to audition for a show called “Thirteen.”

“I’ve made it as far as I had in such a short period of time,” she said. “It just shows me that if you really follow your dreams, it really can work if you want it badly enough.”

Photo by ANDREW WYATT
Sascha Peralta-Ramos

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Local girl acts out her Broadway dreams | Planet JH News Article: General Music Arts and Culture

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