Local star lands in Manhattan

Alexandrea Tocco COURTESY PHOTO Alexandrea Tocco, a Fort Myers High School graduate, arrived in New York City last fall, a freshman at New York University. Her new home is an apartment in Union Square, with three busy roommates who sometimes meet up for coffee at night.

"There are 10 billion Starbucks in Union Square," she said.

The upward trajectory of her career thus far at age 18 has carried her across the stages of Southwest Florida where she can belt out opera or sing jazz, but also dance and act, a "triple threat." Audiences know her from the Gulfshore Playhouse in Naples (where she played Juliet in "Romeo and Juliet Redefined"), Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre and at the Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall in Fort Myers, with the Southwest Florida Symphony.

Last year, she attended Interlochen, a famous fine arts school in Michigan, paying the high tuition by having benefit concerts at places like the Sidney & Berne Davis Arts Center.

Although she lived in Cape Coral for six years prior to moving to New York, Ms. Tocco is originally from New Jersey and used to visit New York City every summer. She says being there feels like home.

"From the minute I got here, I didn't think 'wow, I'm in the city,'" she said. "I didn't feel that. I feel like I've always been here. If you met me, you could tell that I'm very New York, even the way I dress… I always felt like I stuck out like a sore thumb in Florida."

At the beginning of May, school will be out for the summer and Ms. Tocco might come back to the Fort Myers area and perform. But for most of the next three years, she'll be at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts in Manhattan, where she studies at the Cap 21 Conservatory, specializing in musical theater.

Her parents don't have the money to pay for school, so she's still raising some through singing gigs.

"A lot of it is private parties," she said. "People have parties and I come over and I sing and I talk and get to know people and tell them my story, or they tell me their stories, and they help me."

Although New York suits Ms. Tocco, she remembered her past through a cabaret about her own life, which she collaborated on with Jamie Carmichael and Kristen Courey at the Gulfshore Playhouse. The show, "Alexandrea Tocco: On the Way Up," was a onenight only performance, describing the highs and lows of Ms. Tocco's career and her dream of stardom.

But she also understands the realities she'll face after school, when she plans to live in New York and audition for parts. She already auditioned for a pilot that an NYU film student is making.

"To be a working actor, you have to audition for everything," she said. "I'm very open to film and TV. With so many people, you can't be picky."

As a working performer in New York, financial challenges are even tougher. Even getting a headshot can be impossibly costly.

"I went to see a couple of agents and they were giving me names of photographers and I'm like, right, $1,000, I'm going to pull that out of my backpocket," Ms. Tocco said.

But, she added, "I'm not going to let money get in the way of doing what I love to do. When I hear music, I change. Music has pulled me through the rough times. When you find that love, you can't let things like money kill it."

Ms. Tocco was first inspired to sing by her grandmothers on both sides, who would babysit when she was younger.

"My one grandmother would put on old jazz standards and the other one would put in old movies like 'Meet Me in St. Louis' and 'South Pacific' and I would sing along and get captivated into that world," she said.

Now she's captivated into a new world, which looked like this as Ms. Tocco walked home last Saturday afternoon:

"I'm watching everybody walk by. There is a lady getting into a taxi and I'm standing by a tree with no leaves on it because it's cold. It's actually quite beautiful today…

"In front of my building, there are a bunch of people waiting at the bus stop. A homeless man is standing there holding a cup and shaking it for change. Half the people that walk by look like they're wearing Prada and the other half look like they're wearing cardboard. That's Union Square. I see some of my friends…"

Ms. Tocco is also picking up on New Yorker's unique sensibilities.

"Once you get to New York," she said, "you start acting like a New Yorker, like, get out of my way I'm late for class."