About Michaela!

Michaela Catapano is a quick-witted, firecracker musical theatre artist from Long Island, NY. Michaela is a lesbian and neurodivergent, and she strives to make both identities an integral part of her career as an artist and activist. She grew up idolizing queer icons, especially Judy Garland, in her formative years, making her recent time playing Dorothy in THE WIZARD OF OZ with Ocean City Theatre Company especially cherished. Other milestone roles include Liesl in THE SOUND OF MUSIC with The Media Theatre and Libby in I OUGHT TO BE IN PICTURES with Thin Air Theatre Company. Between theatre projects, Michaela works with children and individuals with developmental disabilities and cherishes the opportunities she has to intertwine her social activism and theatre artistry.

Michaela started singing in her high-chair and hasn’t stopped since, eventually moving on to singalongs with the Disney princesses on her TV, and then finally to formal classical vocal training. With tastes that span from classic musical theatre to bubble-gum pop, Michaela has developed a unique sound that expertly straddles the line between the most traditional soprano and a contemporary pop-belt. In college, Michaela seized the opportunity to work heavily on ballet with her professor Kristin Degnan, as Kristin had previously trained artists for the pointe required for their appearances as Christine Daae, a dream role of Michaela’s. She continues her ballet training with Svetlana Belozubova and Venti Petrov at Lumiere Ballet in Bay Shore.

Michaela is heavily influenced by her New York Italian roots: goofy, talkative, and fluent in sarcasm. Still adjusting to recently diagnosed neurodivergence, she always finds a way to wrangle these often misinterpreted symptoms to her advantage, incorporating them into her work. She works to honor that little girl in the high-chair and aims to be her most authentic self in order to help create space for other lesbian, neurodivergent artists.

In her free time, Michaela loves throwing on an audiobook and crocheting for her friends and family, or sweaters for her five-pound morkies.