Erica Robson, Director of the Musical Theatre Program, is also a proud LACHSA alumna herself, graduating from the Dance Department in 1995. She’s been teaching at LACHSA now for 25 years! She has also been a working dancer, actress, teacher, award winning director/choreographer in the field of performing arts for more than twenty-five years. Her film credits include featured roles in Ocean’s Eleven, Looney Tunes: Back in Action, Monkeybone, and Bedazzled. She was a series regular on Ultimate Revenge and has been featured on The Drew Carey Show, Nikki, The Monk Show, Swingtown, Eli Stone, How I Met Your Mother, and Glee. Her national and international tours include A Chorus Line, Jane’s Addiction, and Chayanne. Erica worked as an associate director/choreographer on the television shows So You Think You Can Dance and America’s Got Talent, as well as various musicals, industrials, music videos and dance concerts.

Besides working at LACHSA, Erica has created dance programs for high schools in the Montebello Unified School District and is currently the Chair of the Visual and Performing Arts Department at A.G.B.U Manoogian-Demirdjian School. Erica is also a guest choreographer and teacher at Everybody Dance! – Gabriella Axelrad Education Foundation, The Windward School, and California State Summer School for the Arts. She’s also a critical part of putting the LACHSA Foundation gala’s together and has has worked on every one of them, directing the student performers.

Erica loves creating Broadway-quality productions with her students, exposing them to a very high level of professionalism. Her day-to-day role as Director of Musical Theatre includes directing rehearsals, physical and vocal warm ups, staging and choreographing dance numbers, and pre-production planning. She oversees all the production scheduling, set design, lighting design, sound design, costume design and prop design that goes into Musical Theatre productions.

She feels it’s a huge privilege to have the honor of teaching the most talented, hard-working, driven, and inspiring students in LA County at LACHSA and her goal is to continue to inspire and contribute excellence to the field of performing arts.

Erica, and fellow students, backstage at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre in 1993 when they were performing in the LA Opera’s production of “A Place to Call Home.”

Erica said she is so very grateful that she was able to attend LACHSA and says it impacts her to this day. She remembers being in Junior High School, praying she would get into LACHSA, afraid her mother wouldn’t let her go if she did because the school was so far from where she lived in Chatsworth. Needless to say, she was over the moon when she got the news that she was accepted. She ended up taking the commuter express from Chatsworth to LACHSA everyday traveling over an hour and half each way! She was so happy to be there and be inspired by the other driven, committed students. She also loved having so many different opportunities to perform and learn by performing. One that she remembers fondly was the chance she had to work on the Los Angeles Opera’s production of A Place to Call Home at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre. She loved that she also had the opportunity to work outside the Dance Department and learn new things in the other departments.

She told us that LACHSA changed her life. Attending LACHSA taught her everything she needed to know to embark on a professional performing career. Because of her training at LACHSA, she was hired to work immediately out of school, landing a role in the touring company of A Chorus Line. She’s certain that she wouldn’t have been able to handle the professionalism that tour demanded without her time and training at LACHSA. And then when the tour was finished and she came home to LA, she discovered LACHSA was putting A Chorus Line up and Theatre Department Chair, Lois Hunter, tapped her to help direct and choreograph their show! A full circle moment for her. She’s been working at LACHSA ever since. Erica says her life goal is to continue to inspire and contribute excellence in the field of performing arts and that working at LACHSA has basically turned into her purpose on this planet. She is fulfilled by Inspiring and encouraging the next generation of artists to reach higher heights. She’s says that LACHSA students constantly amaze her with their level of commitment and determination. Her time at LACHSA has impacted her more than she ever dreamed it would. And she has impacted LACHSA by being the brilliant and talented director and choreographer that she is, and helping students to find their inspiration and life purpose.