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LIFE HAS BEEN IMITATING ART FOR NICOLAS DROMARD FOR AS LONG AS HE CAN REMEMBER. THE MULTI-TALENTED OTTAWA TEEN HAS A VIVID MEMORY OF HIS INTRODUCTION TO dance when he was six years old. That was when he saw his first Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers movie. From then on, this Grade One Astaire-in-the-making spent his time tap dancing down the school halls.
He recalls that his teacher called his parents and told them to "Get him into dance classes. He's driving everyone crazy." They listened. That was the beginning of his dance training and his enchantment with the stage. Some twelve years later, he rushed back from performing in a show in a desert location that had much in common with the setting of the musical Crazy for You, crashed a Toronto audition -- this time a reminder of a similar action by a character in the musical A Chorus Line -- and was cast as one of the Jets in the 1999 Stratford Festival production of West Side Story. Now, 19-year-old Dromard has landed a lead role in the Mirvish production of Mamma Mia -- the hit musical inspired by the music of the Swedish singing group Abba. He began rehearsals at the end of March for the show's Toronto opening in late May. After 24 weeks there, he sets out on a lengthy U.S. tour that takes him from San Francisco and Los Angeles to Chicago, Washington D.C. and Boston until the end of 2001. It has been quite a ride so far. A graduate of De La Salle High School, which he describes as "the French Canterbury" (High School), Dromard never doubted that his future was in performance. "It was always my ambition to go on the stage," he says simply. However, he might just as easily have chosen a focus other than dance. Dromard, who plays both the flute and the piano, specialized in instrumental music in high school. "I really wanted to keep going in music and loved being part of the school orchestra and band," he says. "And I wanted to study in French (his first language)." Meanwhile, he chalked up an impressive list of wins in dance competitions including being named the 1995 teen male dancer of the year in the American Dance Awards. A few of his many medals and trophies are crowded on to a five-shelf bookcase in the family home. By the time he was fifteen, he was also studying with singing teacher Yoriko Tanno-Kimmons (many of whose students have moved on to the professional stage) and performing in community theatre productions, including playing the lead in the 1996 Company of Musical Theatre production of Crazy for You. A couple of years and several awards later, he won a dance scholarship that took him to New York City. There he was spotted and cast in the 1998 Radio City Productions Christmas Spectacular, presented in Branson, Missouri. "The Las Vegas of the middle of nowhere," he smiles, quickly adding how much he enjoyed the experience. However, the show dates coincided with open auditions for the 1999 Stratford Festival, which he had hoped to attend. "I got back to Toronto (from Missouri) the night before the callbacks (second round of auditions for selected performers)," he says. With his agent's encouragement he crashed the auditions and won a part in West Side Story. (He was also an under-study for the character of Renfield in Dracula, the season's other musical.) |