Erin Long Follows Performing Dream

“Pushing Boundaries” in Musical Theater

by Jeannine Lipez

LOCK HAVEN – It’s been a long quick trip from her Lock Haven roots for Erin Long, a 2009 graduate of Central Mountain High School, just five years later performing with the USO, the nonprofit organization that has provided entertainment to the American military all over the world.

The daughter of Maribeth and Lenny Long of Lock Haven, she was smitten by the theater bug early on and is pursuing her dream in music and theater in both New York City and beyond.

Beginning in 2003 with the role of Brigitta from, “The Sound of Music” at the Millbrook Playhouse, Erin was bitten by the dream of a career as a performer in music/musical theater. Erin began her training while in high school under the direction of Stacy Malachowski, the music teacher at the time in the Keystone Central School District, taking as many classes in music as possible. Her first musical theater production at Central Mountain was while she was only in 8th grade. Erin appeared as ‘Chip’ in “Beauty and the Beast.” Many other roles followed, ‘Miss Dorothy’ in “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” then in 10th grade, the lead in “Cinderella,” 11th grade, “Rumors” and “You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown” in the role of Lucy.

Also while attending high school, Erin continued her experience in the drama club, broadcasting the high school daily news and daily announcements including extra-curricular and upcoming sporting events, as well as educational and social events. She enjoyed speaking ‘off the cuff’ and using her imagination.

At the same time Erin was also performing in summer productions at Millbrook Playhouse beginning with “The Sound of Music” when she was 11 or 12 years old. The following summer she had the lead as Mary Lenox in “The Secret Garden.” In 2006 Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz”; 2007 Wendy in “Peter Pan.”

In the summer of 2008 Erin took a break and attended a four to five week program in New York City at a New York University Musical Theater class staying in dorms on the campus of NYU. It was her first taste of living in New York. When asked how she found the opportunity at NYU, she applied for the program online hoping to “push herself a little bit more.” Acceptance was based on academic standards and a resume. She was accepted and had the opportunity to work with a casting director and thirteen other students, learning stylings and acting styles. She was able to learn from her peers, “things you need to work on and what songs sell you.” Erin found a love of the music genre of the country/bluegrass style.” Erin said she was told, “That’s where you live as a style of music.”

Erin earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia, participating in about six to eight shows a year. Two of her favorites included the rock opera, “Tommy” and “A Chorus Line,” saying that the “show was a challenge of course, but (she had) never been in better shape.”

Erin’s last performance at Millbrook Playhouse was in 2013 as Sandy in “Grease.” During that summer following graduation from Shenandoah Erin taught voice lessons, basic musicianship, intro to musical theater genre, and music theory in Lock Haven, hoping to make as much money as possible for her late 2013 move to New York. She had a general idea of what she wanted to do, finding a job with a family in New York working as a nanny to four children ages 6, 9, 10 and 11. The work allowed her flexibility to “find a balance of working to pay your bills and pursuing what you came to the city to work on.”

She spent her first several weeks just learning how the city works: how to get groceries, do laundry, ride the subway, “living skills in a city are just more complicated.” She also learned how auditioning works, “walking into an audition and sing your 16-32 bar cut and waiting for call backs.”

In February of this year Erin went to an open call for the USO. She was called back two or three times to dance, and to sing with a choral group in four-part harmony for the director of the troupe and the music director. She heard a week or two later the job was hers and began rehearsals. All the new hires were given two weeks of rehearsals to learn 40 songs. Her schedule consisted of music in the morning and choreography in the afternoon. She was familiar with some of the music, learning every patriotic song including perfecting “about four arrangements of “God Bless America” and “America the Beautiful.”

Asked whether she was nervous about her first performance Erin replied she was very nervous and for about the first month of performances she would “review everything – the music, choreography, make sure the salutes were in the right place as choreography is very specific.” As a member of the USO Erin performs all different types of music including of course, the Andrews Sisters’ most popular songs, “Apple Blossom Time,” “Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy” plus patriotic, service anthems and big band.
 There are 46 in the show troupe and Long told the Record, “It keeps you on your toes, keeps it fun, always changing it up.” The troupe also performs music from all the decades from the 30-40’s and girl group medleys from the 50’s into the 70’s. They travel by plane or car if the venues are close enough being exposed to “amazing organizations, supporting troops and their families as well as veterans.” The USO mission is to lift the spirits of military and their families. Members of the troupes are the ambassadors of the USO organization, they represent the brand.

So far she has stayed “stateside,” traveling to Delaware, Vermont, West Virginia, Mississippi, Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania at Fort Indiantown Gap where her family was able to catch one of her performances. At the time of the interview, Erin was next scheduled to perform in Oklahoma City.

At the present time Erin is in rehearsals for a new show “Royal Fables,” a story about the princesses and heroines of legendary fairy tales and why they choose what they choose. The music is an original score written by Nick Luckenbaugh, being produced off-off Broadway by the Libra Theater Company at the Access Theater, 380 Broadway, New York opening October 30 with a projected run until November 15th.

Erin has the role of Thumbelina. Asked what she was enjoying about the experience she replied, “getting to create the character; spending forty-five minutes with the music director and composer to work through the song – singing the song for the writer – how he wants her to sing a particular part; to sing the song someone wrote – for the composer, it was so cool.”

She said her Millbrook experience was the motivator for her career. “It was all Millbrook. That first summer doing “The Sound of Music” and meeting amazing performers who came to Millbrook from New York City, I think this is something I could do and something I could pursue.” Now the people she met through the years at Millbrook have become her support in the city.

Future plans: “continue to grow and continue to push my boundaries and keep working constantly pursuing the next thing. There are so many opportunities in New York, you need to be driven and keep doing it.”

Asked what plays and musicals she has seen so far in New York and what her dream role would be, she said, “a dream role for me? To play Carole King” in the musical ‘Beautiful.’