IN Fox Chapel Area Summer 2018 | Page 41

F ox Chapel Area High School alum Gaelen Gilliland was born to perform. From musical theater in Pittsburgh to the stages of Broadway, the actress has definitely made her hometown proud. Gilliland was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and moved to Pittsburgh on her sixth birthday. “My family sang happy birthday to me as we drove from Wisconsin to ‘da ‘burgh’ in our big blue van,” she laughs. She is the youngest of five siblings—three of which still reside in the Pittsburgh area. Gilliland graduated from Fox Chapel Area High School with the class of 1992. “Fox Chapel High School was a great education and atmosphere, and got me really going into musical theater because of the quality of their productions,” she says. Gilliland also took plenty of dance, theater classes and summer programs throughout the Pittsburgh area that afforded her loads of experience, including her work with Ken Gargaro and Pittsburgh Musical Theater (PMT). “I got into musical theater through Ken Gargaro’s mentorship, who honed my talent and encouraged it out of me,” she notes. “I never really realized what kind of voice I had until later in life because I was so set on dancing. I realized I was getting a lot more attention for voice than anything else, so I started to take it more seriously in college.” Following her graduation from Gaelen Gilliland (bottom right) and her castmates in “SpongeBob SquarePants.” Fox Chapel Area, Gilliland went on to receive a BFA in Musical Theater One of those bookings was for a national tour of “Dr. Dolittle,” from Syracuse University. “I began where the casting director, Jay Binder, took an immediate liking to love it more and more, and never tired of the long hours of to Gilliland, and booked her for what the actress considers rehearsals and performing throughout my college years,” she says. her “big break”—a concert at Carnegie Hall, in a production Gilliland’s journey to Broadway was not glamorous. “It all of “South Pacific” that starred Reba McEntire, Alec Baldwin started in my small three-bedroom apartment in Harlem, getting and many Broadway celebrities including Lillias White, Jason ready for yet another audition in the midst of the busy spring Danielly, Brian Stokes Mitchell and more. audition season in New York City,” she recalls. “I remember “Since the concert was only one night, I was convinced it pointing to the heavens and saying ‘God, I will quit this business would be the beginning and end of my career,” Gilliland laughs. if I don’t book something soon!’ only to realize God wasn’t “My parents and sisters came into town to see me perform, going to shout from the heavens that I shouldn’t quit. I realized and just as they arrived, I decided to run over to an afternoon I needed to light my own fire, and get myself out there giving audition for ‘Wicked. ’ I remember hurrying through the audition it everything I had to get people’s attention. I went into that because I was just so thrilled to be playing Carnegie Hall that audition season with a better attitude, less desperate and more night in a chorus of 45.” joyful, and got called back for 10 out of the 11 auditions, finally booking two.” Continued on next page > FOX CHAPEL AREA ❘ SUMMER 2018 39