Polly Baird: From Ballet to Broadway
Polly Baird is off to dancing school at the Stanley Holden Dance Center in Los Angeles. She approaches it from a different angle. Most girls dream of sugar plums dancing in their heads, while Polly dreamed of Cats. On a visit to New York, her mother, Nancy Fox, a former Broadway dancer, took Polly and her sister Emily to see Cats on Broadway. Baird loved it so much that she would paint her face like a cat and put on the show at home. When her family moved to New York, she auditioned for the School of American Ballet. There were 250 girls at the audition. Baird was one of 17 accepted for her class.
Dancing children’s roles in The Nutcracker, Baird says, “really got her hooked.” She also danced in “Circus Polka” and “Sleeping Beauty” with the New York City Ballet. But it was performing in “Corsaire,” “Cinderella” and “Coppelia” with American Ballet Theatre and “Sleeping Beauty” with the Kirov Ballet that impressed her most. Baird loved performing.
Being very self-motivated and still attending SAB, Baird wanted a full-range career as a dancer. In addition to her ballet training, she took jazz, tap, Irish step-dancing and acting lessons. She liked the theatre; The Sound of Music, which had a cast of children, was among her favorites. “I wanted to be in a show so badly,” Baird admits.
On a break, Baird and her mother went to England, and David Howard invited her to take a company class with The Royal Ballet. “It was an amazing experience, just walking in the door at the Royal Opera House,” she says. Baird loved England and auditioned for the English National Ballet School. She was accepted but because she still had to finish her last year of high school in America, had to decline the offer. Prior to visiting England, Baird was offered a contract to appear as one of the little ballerinas in Phantom of the Opera. They wanted her to go on tour with the show. She was 16 years old and still in high school, so her family decided against it. Denny Berry, the production dance supervisor, said she would get another opportunity. When she received an offer to join the Broadway cast of “Phantom” in New York, she finally said “yes!” Completing her academic education while appearing each night on Broadway, she attended the Professional Children’s School and felt she finally fit in.
After several years in “Phantom,” Baird left Broadway to go on tour with the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular. She says, “It was an incredible amount of work—10 hours a day dancing in heels, learning a new number each day for 11 days of rehearsal. But it was a great experience.” Next, she joined the national tour of “Phantom” in Toronto. Because she is a trained dancer, she had a bit of stage fright when having to sing, but she stayed on the road long enough to get over it.
Now, Polly’s days are filled with rehearsals, dance and singing lessons. What gives her the most joy is working with Angels on a Leash, training her English Cocker Spaniel Lexie to be a service dog and visiting patients in Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, where her father is a doctor.
All her lessons have paid off. Her rise in “Phantom” has gone from ballet corps member to the lead ballerina, Meg Giry. She sings, she dances, she acts and she is a star on Broadway. Her name is out front and she has her own dressing room. At age 21, Polly Baird is “amazed that her dream has come true at such a young age.”