INPERSON
Hometown Triple Threat
Peters Township High School alum Katie Terza acts, sings and dances her way through a Broadway career.
BY NICOLE TAFE
Twenty-five minutes before curtain of Broadway’ s“ On the Town,” Katie Terza’ s phone rang.“ We need you to go on tonight,” said the show’ s dance captain Chip Abbott as he proceeded to talk through the order of the show. Terza grabbed her things and ran out the door. Cast as a swing, Terza was on call to go on stage at any moment to replace any of the eight female ensemble roles in the show.
When she reached the theater, she hustled into wig prep and began putting on her makeup as people bustled around her with costumes and information on the several quick changes she’ d need to make throughout the show. With choreographer Josh Bergasse in the audience, Terza put herself together just in time for Abbott to walk her onto the stage.“ It’ s your Broadway debut! How is it that you’ re so calm?” he said.“ It’ s fight or flight, and right now, I have no choice!” said Terza as the curtain rose on the start of her Broadway career.
Terza, 29, was born in Duquesne and, at age three, her family moved to Peters Township. They left the area for a brief time and moved to Chicago when Terza was nine, but returned to Peters Township in her eighth grade year.
Terza models her " Boxing Ring " costume from " On The Town."
PHOTO BY TED ELY PHOTOGRAPHY
Terza attended Peters Township High School and graduated with the class of 2005.“ My time at PTHS was busy to say the least!” says Terza, who was very involved in school as a cheerleader and member of the dance team, all while traveling downtown several nights a week to attend dance classes at Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre.
Though extremely passionate about dance from a young age, after attending an American Ballet Theatre summer camp, Terza was not certain ballet was what she wanted to pursue.“ With ballet, you have to decide at a young age if it’ s what you want to do as a career, and I wasn’ t quite ready to make that decision,” she says. And so, Terza decided to spend her sophomore
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