Grosso brings immigrant experience to ‘Les Miserables’
From a young age Joshua Grosso knew that acting was his greatest passion. He started on a small stage at American Heritage School in South Florida, but today he performs on bigger stages in touring Broadway musicals.
Grosso, 25, is a cast member in “Les Miserables,” which opens Tuesday at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Orlando.
“I was singing at a really young age in my dad’s church in New York. Then from there the first time I ever really did anything professional or considered this professionally was during a competition called ‘Juguemos Cantando’ (Let’s
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■ play singing) on a Christian radio,” Grosso recalled.
He was 12 at the time, but did so well that he remembers when “my dad looked at me and said, ‘Do you want to give this a go?’ and I said, ‘Sure.’”
Born in Colombia and raised in New York and South Florida, Grosso said he lives a “very Latino life” but is also very aware of how blessed he is to live the American Dream in the United States.
His first performance was in a school production of “Willy Wonka Junior.”
“When I found out you can act and sing at the same time, I never looked back,” he said.
The rest is history.
He has performed the leading roles of Usnavi in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “In the Heights” and Fabrizio in “The Light in the Piazza.” He was the winner of the 2012 Jimmy Awards, a nationwide high school equivalent of the Tonys, and he recently graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Carnegie Mellon University.