I'm Trent - A Pittsburgh-raised, New York City-based Performer, Choreographer/Director, and Teacher. How'd I get my start, you ask? Well ... after seeing a production of Honk! - the musical adaptation of "The Ugly Duckling" - in kindergarten, I was HOOKED. I quickly dropped the baseball, literally because I can't catch, and signed up for an after school theatre program called ACT ONE Theatre School. I attended for 8 years and started building my performer's toolbox of skills that make me a unique actor from the ripe young age of 7! The awkward middle school years came quickly and, Justin Bieber haircut and all, I booked my first professional gig during the seventh grade as the Turkey Boy in the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera (PCLO) annual production of A Musical Christmas Carol. I began training at the Pittsburgh CLO Academy of Musical Theater while performing in my regular public high school shows and soon joined their elite troupe of young performers. This training was crucial for me as a young professional and I believe is the foundation from which I still pull.

Ever since I can remember, I've been obsessed with putting on shows: in my bedroom, in my Grandma's beach condo, on my family's trampoline, literally anywhere. I think I knew early on that I wanted to be a creative as well as a performer considering that I would spend hours typing up the Wicked script from watching a bootleg. Yeah, I was that kid. As I got older, I realized that just being onstage wasn't enough for me. The summer after my junior year of high school, I interned for Front Porch Theatricals' Summer Season and simultaneously choreographed my first full-length musical for a community theatre in my hometown. Needless to say, I was eager and these opportunities opened many doors in my mind on what it's like to be on the "other side of the table" during a production!

When it came to college and how I wanted to shape my future, I knew that I wanted to apply and audition/interview for both Musical Theatre programs, as well as Directing programs. After an arduous college audition process, I moved to New York City to attend Pace University's School of Performing Arts for a BA in Directing as part of the International Performance Ensemble. In this program, the training largely centers devised theater - collaborating closely with actors in a setting where creating work from the ground up is the basis of curriculum. I devised and created a piece in this program with an ensemble of actors called BLOOM which played off-Broadway at The Lion Theatre at Theatre Row in the Spring of 2018. We also toured this production to Bale, Croatia and were featured in Croatia's first-ever Youth Theatre Festival. Early on in college, I also auditioned for and was accepted into the Minor in Commercial Dance at Pace - an elite, rigorous dance program with only one or two selected dancers each year. After a couple of semesters studying Directing, I transferred into the Musical Theater program at Pace, and I graduated with my BFA in Musical Theatre and a Minor in Commercial Dance in May of 2021. 

​From theater jazz classes to beginner tap classes, I find that sharing my experiences with students through Arts Education is something that brings me a lot of joy. During my time in the Pittsburgh area in high school, I was a Work Study at the Pittsburgh CLO Academy. As my teaching skills developed, I started teaching and choreographing for theater camps and dance companies around the Pittsburgh area. When I went to college, I started to take teaching more seriously and found myself as a Dance Instructor and Choreographer for Young Artists of America's Summer Performing Arts Intensives. I have served on faculty at Young Artists of America and OhLook Performing Arts Center and as a guest teaching artist for companies all over North America like Penn State University (State College, PA), Plymouth State University (Plymouth, NH), companyONE Dance NY (Long Island, NY), Scona Theatre Co. (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada), Gonzaga University (Spokane, WA),  StudioDans (Fulton, MD), Centre Stage, Inc., and The Broadway Experience both in the greater Los Angeles area, among others. 

LET'S WORK TOGETHER!