My next performer of the month is swing extraordinaire Amber Ardolino! Amber is such an incredible performer that I just knew I had to do a blog post on her! Pre-Pandemic Amber could be seen being a super swing covering 10 parts at Moulin Rouge: The Musical! How incredible is that?!
Amber first found her love for musical theatre when her mum took her to see Miss Saigon, she said she was amazed by it all and cried all the way through…that was the moment that she knew she wanted to do this as a living. Amber got her start through dance which she started learning at age three and then danced competitively until she was asked to choose between dance and her other love – singing which she started learning at age 13. Amber questioned why she had to choose because she wanted to do both – because of this she ended leaving the dance company she was with to pursue both. After graduating from high school Amber then attended Syracuse University for a year before leaving to join the 2nd US National Tour of West Side Story.
After touring with West Side Story for about a year she then joined two other tours, one being the Norwegian Cruise Lines production of Legally Blonde and the other being Flashdance where we understudied the role of Alex. After she left both of those tours she auditioned for the Las Vegas production of Rock of Ages where she was cast as a swing learning 7 ensemble tracks and then was later promoted to the role of Sherrie.
Whilst on a break and healing from a sprained ankle, Amber auditioned for the Chicago production of Hamilton: An American Musical. After callbacks and auditions Amber was cast as Woman One in the ensemble and was also cast as the understudy for Peggy Schuyler/Maria Reynolds in the Original Chicago Company. Whilst she was with the Chicago company Amber learnt all the female ensemble tracks in the show, giving her the title of universal swing which means that she could go on for any of the female ensemble track. This lead to her being transferred to the Broadway Company and making her Broadway Debut!
Whilst she was still with the Chicago company Amber’s friend Samantha Pollino taught Amber the choreography to a new show called ‘Head Over Heels’ that she(Sam) was leaving Hamilton to go on and do. The two filmed Amber doing the choreography and sent it off to the team at Head Over Heels as an audition tape for her! They cast Amber in Head Over Heels by merely watching her audition tape! Head Over Heels was the first show were Amber got to originate a role. Head over Heels proved to be a hit in the out of town tryouts and everyone involved had learnt the news that they got the go-ahead for going to Broadway! During this time Amber rehearsed for Head over Heels during the day and then performed in Hamilton during the evenings!
After Head Over Heels closed in January of 2019 Amber announced that she was going to be in the new musical Jagged Little Pill based on the music of Alanis Morissette as a member of the ensemble due to the fact that she had done workshops for it in the developmental stage of the musical after their Boston run.
However, that never happened and it was later announced that Amber was joining the cast of Moulin Rouge! Here Amber was cast as a Swing again, originally covering 9 parts but then moving on to cover 10! Amber first went on and made her official Moulin Rouge Debut in the show in the track that she didn’t normally cover or know! She had to learn it in an hour to go on for that night! La Chocolat was added to her list of tracks from that day on! Amber also understudies the principal role of Satine and she had her Principal Character Broadway debut just over a year ago on December 3rd 2019!!
During Quarantine Amber has been open about the fact that she has had doubts, wondering if Broadway was where she was meant to be; but during one of these bouts of doubt Broadway World nominated her for the award of Broadway Star-To-Be Of The Next Decade which reminded and reassured her she is exactly where she is meant to be…After the voting was over Amber ended up winning the award!! So look out world Amber Ardolino is coming your way!!
As you can see Amber is incredibly impressive! Learning one part is hard enough but several?! That’s insane!
Amber is also tied to two smaller musical projects that are starting out! One is called ‘Within Earshot’ which has an EP out now on streaming platforms and Amber sings a song called End Up Together with Bonnie Milligan and the other project being called ‘The Ladies Man’ which currently has two singles out and Amber features on the track ‘I Want Your Love’ with the rest of the extremely talented cast. So go check those two out! I cannot wait until we see more of those amazing musicals and get to see Amber shine as a principal!
Some of the roles that I would love to see Amber perform in one day are:
Belle in Beauty and the Beast, Nina in In The Heights, Vivian in Pretty Woman, Mimi in Rent, Samantha Brown in the Mad Ones and Katherine Howard in Six!
I came so SO close to seeing Amber in Moulin Rouge this year but hopefully, once all this mess is over I can fly over and see her be the incredible performer she is! Until then I am hoping that I can Zoom with her one day!!
If You have read all this, I am sure it comes as no surprise as to why this incredibly talented woman is my performer of the month! Covering 10 roles is A-MA-ZING and so is she!! She is also a stunning dancer so I recommend checking out some of her social media out for clips of that!
You can follow Amber at
amberardolino on Instagram
ardolinoamber on Twitter
And
ambernicoleardolino on Tiktok (highly recommended!)
Amber is truly a ‘Sparkling Diamond’!
You can buy the Head Over Heels soundtrack here>> https://amzn.to/2KP71VJ
Head over heels playbill >>