Maybe it was luck. Maybe it was fate.
Or maybe it was just the Theatre Gods recognizing talent
and determination in a young man and making sure he got a chance to make his
dreams come true.
Whatever the reasons, Rogelio Douglas Jr. is thankful it
happened to him when it did.
It was only a few years ago, after all, when the young
Brooklyn native was wondering if all his years of training – as well as his
passion for performing – would add up to little more than a few years of being
just another ‘hoofer’ in the Big Apple.
“I was tap dancing in Riverdance when I got injured and it
really knocked me back. I couldn’t dance for a long time and I gained a lot of
weight. I didn’t think I’d be able to get back to performing and that really
depressed me,” Douglas said. “I finally had enough of feeling sorry about
things, lost 41 pounds and started making the rounds for auditions. I’d always
been known as a dancer, but I wanted to find out if there was more for me out
there. I wanted to find a place of my own on Broadway.”
In 2007, Douglas found his dream…or at least he found his
way to the first stage of making that dream come true. He went to an open call
for a new Broadway show called In the Heights, the story of New York’s
Washington Heights neighborhood – a place where the coffee from the corner
bodega is light and sweet, the windows are always open and the breeze carries
the rhythm of three generations of music -- and made it through the lengthy
audition process to win a job as a chorus member and understudy.
“Everyone dreams that they’ll go on an audition and get
hired as a principal actor right away, but the reality of this business can be
very different,” Douglas said. “I was with the show for nine months working in
the chorus before I got a chance to be a principal. Looking back on it, I
wouldn’t have changed a thing. I never worked so hard in my life as I did in
those nine months. It’s like they knew my limits and pushed me beyond them every
day, whether it was singing or dancing or both. It was grueling, but I learned
so much. It prepared me to take over a principal role when it was offered to
me.”
