About the FOUNDER
Caley Crawford
Caley is thrilled to be going back to her roots in Houston after a fulfilling theatre career in New York and around the country performing in Broadway, National Tour, and Regional Theatre Productions. Caley is a proud member of Actor's Equity and graduated from The Boston Conservatory with a B.F.A in Musical Theatre. She performed at Stratford Playhouse during her time at Stratford and started taking dance from Suzanne Semans at the age of 4. Caley also trained with Joffrey Ballet and Broadway Theatre Project in high school.
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Caley's professional credits include:
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Holiday Inn (Swing, u.s. Louise) - Original Broadway Cast (Denis Jones)
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A Chorus Line (Cassie) - Broadway National Tour (Baayork Lee)
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Randy Skinner's White Christmas (u.s. Judy) - Westchester Theatre
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Holiday Inn (ensemble) - World Premiere, Goodspeed Opera House
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Holiday Inn (ensemble) - The Muny in St. Louis
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A Chorus Line (Bebe) - The Muny in St. Louis w/ Denis Jones
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Thoroughly Modern Millie (u.s. Millie) - Goodspeed Opera House
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A Chorus Line (Lois, u.s. Cassie) - Riverside Theatre
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A Very Merry Pops - Houston Symphony
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Caley can be heard singing and tapping on the original Broadway cast recording of Holiday Inn and performed in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade with Holiday Inn. She has worked with many prestigious choreographers and directors and hopes to share the experience she's been blessed to have through teaching young artists and dancers. Aside from her theatre and dance career, Caley has also been a leader in the fitness franchising space with Row House and Xponential Fitness. Caley helped to grow the brand from 2 locations in New York City to 97 location at the brand's peak. Caley also works for a brand called myrow in the digital fitness space.
Caley is thrilled to be coming back to her roots with theatre and dance, and in a position to share her passion for dance and theatre and give back to the community that supported her throughout the years.
Lauren Brophy
Tap & Jazz
Lauren Brophy is from Houston Texas and has been dancing since the age of 2. Lauren has extensive training in all genres of dance Tap being her main style Lauren has trained under Tony Merriwether and Matt Shields, and worked with many other incredible tap artists. She trained predominantly with Dina Vail, Emily Roy for ballet. Growing up she trained as a competitive dancer, and has choreographed many pieces for competition in her later career . She has been given the opportunity to work with and preform pieces created by many brilliant choreographers. She was apart of a Houston tap group called Taproots through True-sound rhythm productions back in 2017- 2019. She has also interned at many Tap festivals and conventions including LA tap festival ran by Jason Samuel Smith at Debbie Allen dance academy and has been heavily integrated in the Tap dance community. She later joined Matt shields tap ensemble and danced with his group for 4 years. Being a musician herself she has a heavy background in music and rhythm. Lauren has been teaching dance for over 6 years now and is a huge lover of helping dancers find their own unique voice through movement, while also maintaining the fundamentals and technique based training teaching structure.
Thalia Gonzalez
Ballet
Graduated at the Fernando Alonso National Ballet School and with a highest score from the University of Art (ISA) in Havana, Cuba. After her graduation, she joined Fernando Alonso Ballet School as a ballet, pointe and repertoire teacher. A year later she joined Faculty of Dance Arts in the University of Arts (ISA) as a ballet instructor. She complemented her education with a Master in Formative Processes for Arts Teaching and with a certification in Progressing Ballet Technique (PBT). She is the author of many articles in dance journal and investigator of emotional intelligence in dancers.
Thalia has mentored young dancers for national and international competitions, guiding them to win prestigious awards in Cuba and Mexico. After a period in Mexico as a ballet teacher she moved to the United States, where she continues to train the new generations of dancers.
Summer Conkling
Drill Team, Contemporary Jazz, Hip Hop
Born and raised in Texas, Summer has been passionate about dance since the age of 5. She recently graduated from Texas A&M University in May 2024 with a Bachelor of Arts in Communication and a minor in Creative Studies.
Summer trained for nine years at Memorial Dance Center under the guidance of Jaci Smith and Nicole Van Sickler. She was a member of the Diamond Company Team and taught 4th-grade jazz and hip-hop for three years. Her extensive training includes time with Memorial Dance Center Company (9 years) and New Canaan Dance Academy (4 years) in New Canaan, Connecticut. Additionally, she trained at Broadway Dance Center in New York, NY, under renowned choreographer Sheila Barker, and performed at Madison Square Garden during halftime for the New York Liberty Women’s Basketball Team.
Throughout her dancing career, Summer has earned numerous accolades, including “All Star Dancer of the Year” at Crowd Pleasers Dance, three full scholarship awards from Dupree Dance, the title of “Overall Senior Solo Performer” at MA Dance Competition, and many other regional dance competition titles. Her dance mentors include Jaci Smith, Nicole Van Sickler, Callie DiFrancesco, Carla Capetillo, Tyrell Mitchell, Amanda Lehman, and Dylan Smith.
Chelsea McCurdy
Acting & Musical Theatre, Vocal Teacher
Chelsea is a native Houstonian and Stratford High School Alum! Chelsea is a professional actress in Houston performing in spaces like The Alley, Theatre Under the Stars, Stages Repertory Theatre, 4th Wall Theatre and many more. Chelsea has been an educator in the arts for over a decade. She holds BFA in Musical Theatre, Post Bachelors in Education and Certification in Vocal Pedagogy from Berkeley College of Music at Boston Conservatory. She is always eager to continue her education to enhance the experience for her students.
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“I look forward to being back teaching in the Spring Branch area working with Broadway Dance Lab and these young artists! Cheers to the artistry we will create together!"
Annie Wild
Acting & Musical Theatre
A Houston native and Stratford Playhouse alum, Annie graduated with a BFA in Musical Theatre from The Boston Conservatory. She has performed and lived in NYC, Los Angeles, Houston and regionally. In Houston she has performed with The Alley, Stages, The Ensemble, Main Street, Catastrophic and Dirt Dogs. Her most recent film work in The Dancing Monkey is currently in festival circuit. Annie is also a Voice Actor with Sentai Filmworks and can be heard on many anime dubs on HiDive, Hulu and other streaming platforms. You can also hear her as the audiobook narrator of the series The Executioner and Her Way of Life. She has been a guest of honor for Anime Boston, Anime Houston and others.
Along with performing, Annie has been a Teaching Artist with The Alley Theatre for 6+ years, taught private acting lessons at St. Stephens Episcopal School and has been coaching students on auditions and monologues since 2013. She is passionate about sharing her love for theatre with young artists and helping them to build confidence and joy in performing.
Julia Laskowski
Vocal Teacher
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Julia Laskowski is thrilled to be a part of Caley Crawford's exciting new vision for Broadway Dance Lab.
She has taught private voice lessons for over 30 years and graduated with a BFA from CAL ARTS and did graduate work at U of H & the Manhattan School of Music.
She has performed locally at HGO, TUTS, Stages Theatre, Main Street Theater, AD PLAYERS, TEX REP Opera in the Heights, Lonestar Lyric, and San Antonio Opera.
She toured with an original comedy musical she wrote with Patti Rabaza at the Temple Theatre in North Carolina, Bossier City, and Phoenix, Arizona.
She performed concerts in Italy in Milan, Como, Vivegano, Montescanno, Pinzolo and Fannano.
Currently, she sings concerts locally and in Malta and tours in a 2 person show with her husband Mark about Rosemary Clooney.
Her vocal styles range from Grand Opera to country, rock , Broadway and jazz standards.
She enjoys teaching all ages and levels these genres of singing.