In “Bob Fosse’s DANCIN’,” 27-year-old Kolton Krouse, who is nonbinary, performed a track that included roles in both heels and flats. It was a significant step toward inclusivity that also felt natural. Fosse asked dancers to be themselves onstage; “DANCIN’” simply showed Krouse as Krouse.

Dancing across a hotel ballroom in small-town America seems a world away from performing on Broadway, but for some students, competitions and conventions are an important step toward realizing that dream. Skills honed at these events—the ability to quickly learn choreography in a wide range of styles and perform it immediately afterward—are valuable in securing work in musical theater.

There’s a delicious bit of mischief in everything Kolton Krouse does. He’ll toss off some impossibly difficult sequence—a quintuple pirouette into a prolonged développé into an aerial, say—and end with an impish smile that’s the stage equivalent of saying, “How good was that? And how much fun did I have doing it?” The 21-year-old brings […]