Christian Collins

Christian is a New Orleans local who has been doing theatre since his family got him involved in his first musical, Beauty and the Beast at St. Mary’s Dominican High School. Ever since then, he has been performing and choreographing all across the Gulf States. Christian graduated from the NOCCA Musical Theatre Department in 2022 and is currently obtaining his BFA in Music Theatre from Florida State University. GO NOLES! Some of his favorite performances include Pippin (Pippin) at NOCCA; RENT (Steve), 42nd Street, Matilda (Michael), and Newsies (Jojo) at Tulane Summer Lyric Theatre; Something Rotten! (Robin/Shakespeare U.S./Dance Captain) and Sweet Charity (Charlie/Frug/Vittorio U.S.) at FSU; and Fun Home (Christian Bechdel) at Southern Repertory Theatre.  Christian has grown up at Rivertown, starting with Pinkalicious: the Musical (Peter) on the Lagniappe Stage, and going on to do shows such as Grease (Dance Captain), The Addams Family (Pugsley), and The Little Mermaid (Flounder), just to name a few.  Choreography has been a passion of Christian’s ever since he got into his first dance class at Encore Studios. He started his choreography journey with a workshop of a Ricky Graham children’s musical, and went on to choreograph A Charlie Brown Christmas and almost all of the Raise Your Voice Benefit Concerts here on the Rivertown Stage (He directed, choreographed, and co-produced Raise Your Voice 4 in 2022). He has gone on to choreograph for The Jerry Herman Legacy Foundation’s Concert at FSU (“Tap Your Troubles Away” from Mack and Mabel), and numerous small endeavors here and there.  Newsies is an absolute dream for Christian. He wants to thank Kelly for asking him to go on this journey with her and for believing that he was capable of helming a show like this. He’s also grateful to his cast for working as hard as they have in order to get to this point, and to all of the people who have supported him and got him to where he is.  He wants to shout out the choreographers that have influenced him most in the process of creating this show: Christopher Gattelli, Michael Fatica, Matt Cole, Chris Bailey, Katelin Zelon, and Casey Nicolaw. To Tess, my best friend, it has been an absolute joy getting to do this show alongside you, an experience I will never forget. Enjoy the show!