Carmen Lessa

Carmen was born and raised in Fairfield, California, a suburb of the San Francisco Bay Area. The daughter of two musicians, performing was in her blood. She started taking ballet at the age of four at Solano Civic Ballet where she trained rigorously for ten years. She also started piano at the age of six and sang in her church choir. Towards her teen years, Carmen realized that ballet was not going to be her future and looked toward broadening her scope of training. She started partaking theatre in school and added tap and jazz dance classes as well as private voice lessons. For her first year of college, Carmen moved to Kansas to attend Wichita State University as a double major in dance and musical theatre. Through the dance program at WSU, she was able to go to Taiwan where their company toured the country. Longing for the ocean, she moved back home after her first year and enrolled in Solano Community College's Actor Training Program (ATP), a two year conservatory program developed by Actor/Director George Maguire. There she learned many skills and met her future husband. After graduating ATP, she continued her college education at San Francisco State University where she earned a BA in Dance with an emphasis in Musical Theatre in 2012. Throughout college, Carmen performed in many plays and musicals throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. After graduating college, she started working for Lamorinda Theatre Academy (now Performing Academy) as a dance teacher and choreographer. As the company grew, so did Carmen's position, where she is now the Production and Shop Manager. Carmen keeps busy working at Performing Academy and performing in theaters as well as working on various film and television projects in the Bay Area.