A Song-and-Dance Woman In Our Midst

Amber Cameron knows how to put on a show. A dance show. She has been a Rockette, a Jellicle cat, she’s toured nationally with “Funny Girl” and “Crazy for You,” and now she lives in Falls Village and devotes her talents to the regional theater scene. The sophisticated dancing in the Housatonic Musical Theatre Society’s recent production of “The Boy Friend” showed off her flair as a choreographer.

“I don’t dumb anything down,” she told me “I would do the same choreography with professionals as I do for the students at Housy. I set a standard, and they rise to the occasion, even if they’re not dancers.”

   Raised on Mercer Island, near Seattle, WA, Cameron started as a gymnast but grew too tall, so she began dance class at age 8. Later, she got a look at dance in New York when her her teacher, Camille Chrysler, brought students East to take classes and see shows. One of Chrysler’s protégés, Mary Ann Lamb, who went on to dance with Bob Fosse, told Cameron to finish college before entering the dance scene. Cameron took her advice and arrived in New York in October 2001, just after 9/11. 

“She told me to go to 50, 60, 70 auditions,” Cameron recalls. 

“ ‘Don’t talk yourself out of anything.’ I got a cheap apartment in Harlem, where I shared a room with another girl, which meant I didn’t have to spend all my time working to make the rent. I had time to take class and audition.”    

Cameron hostessed in restaurants at night, and in less than a year, she booked her first national tour of “Funny Girl,” and then landed a spot in The Rockettes.

Eventually, she married Luke Miller, who had grown up weekending in Salisbury, and they settled in Falls Village in 2010. That’s when she began exploring the local theater scene and met Michael Berkeley. She found her talents to be a perfect fit for a Divas! production. “I knew just what they wanted.” 

Over time, she says, Berkeley helped her develop her choreographic style, working first with Divas! and then with shows at Housatonic Valley Regional High School and the Warner Theatre in Torrington.  

Last year, Cameron and Berkeley put on “Hello Dolly!” at Housatonic, and now they are presenting a new production at the Warner.  

“We’ll have a kind of foot-bridge around the orchestra that is a classic staging effect for this show, and Dolly makes her entrance on a cart drawn by horses.”

After that comes a Berkeley-written show, “Rip! the Musical,” choreographed by Cameron, at the Rhinebeck Center for Performing Arts, July 17-19. 

And she is still performing. She was a hit singing and dancing last year as Lola in “Damn Yankees” at the Warner.

She’s having a fine time, she says. “I’ve been blessed.” 

“Hello Dolly!” runs at the Warner Theatre in Torrington May 2 - 10. For tickets, call 860-489-7180.