Classical ballet dance professional
Metairie, LA
Little did Laurie know that performing Mary Pickford in Tony award-winning choreographer Joe Layton’s the Grand Tour would presage her own entrance into show business after 14 years of classical ballet. Looking back it almost seems a natural progression for Laurie, from the Sugar Plum Fairy in the Nutcracker to the solo dancer in the Phantom of the Opera.
As a soloist at Houston Ballet she performed many of the signature roles of the classical ballet canon. Her turn as the Sugar Plum fairy in the Nutcracker garnered her critical reviews as did her performances of the Crouching Woman in Margo Sappington’s Rodin: Mis en vie. Houston audiences as well as those in Europe and Asia saw her as the Fairy Beauty and Temperament in the Sleeping Beauty in addition to the Pas de Trois in Tchaikovsky’s other masterpiece, Swan Lake.
In 1994, after a 14-year classical ballet career, she joined the touring production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s the Phantom of the Opera. As the dance captain she was in charge of the musical staging of the production. Later she assumed the same position with the Broadway production where she worked with the show’s Tony award-winning director, Hal Prince.
After 18 years with Phantom, she hung up her pointe shoes, only to be called back in 2014 to assist in the staging of a new production in Hamburg, Germany. The fall of 2017 finds her as a visiting professor of music theater at the University of Utah.
Visit Laurie’s website at www.laurielangdon.com
Fellow: Glenn Langdon