As a kid growing up in artsy Iowa City with musician parents, Paul Amrani was steeped in the music and performing arts scene in Iowa City from a very young age. In fact, it was a performance of Riverdance at (pre-flood) Hancher Auditorium that convinced 3-year-old Paul that he wanted to be a professional dancer. 

His parents worried that he might fidget or get bored, that he might not make it through the whole show. “But I was on the edge of my little seat the entire show,” Paul remembers.

“On the way home I asked my parents to help me become a dancer.” 

His parents agreed, signing him up for dance classes in the UI Youth Ballet Program, and later through Nolte Academy. He went on to study at summer intensives with the Kansas City Ballet and Harid Conservatory in Boca Raton, FL, and spent two years in the professional program at the Houston Ballet Academy.

After all that ballet, Paul says, “I realized that I really wanted to be doing musical theatre—so I came back to West High for my senior year of high school, got involved with musical theatre at West, and started auditioning for college musical theatre programs.”

He got his BFA degree in Musical Theatre at Texas State University, and then moved to New York to pursue his professional dance and acting career. His current role, as the Judge in the touring Broadway production of Chicago: The Musical, was the first role he landed.

“It’s so cool that Chicago was the first show I booked. That feels really special, because I’ve loved it since such a young age,” Paul says.

“I’m so excited and honored to be coming back to Hancher! From the first moment I come on stage to the bows at the end of the show, I think I’m going to just be crying the entire time.”