Written By Sherwood Kohn
The little girl sauntered about her dressing room above the stage at Washington, D.C.’s National Theatre, stopping occasionally in front of the light-framed mirror to dab makeup on her face. She was cool, unperturbed. It was 20 minutes before the curtain went up on “Hot Feet,” the Broadway-bound musical in which she had a prominent role. Any butterflies? She shook her head. Excited, yes, but stage fright? Forget it. A seasoned trouper in size 4 shoes.
Hampstead residents Jeff and Lisa Pollino have a tiger by the tail: an 11-year-old, 4-foot, 6-inch, lively, charming, precocious, talented blond tiger of a daughter named Samantha.
Samantha, who at the age of 3 was already dancing at the North Carroll Recreation Center, brought audiences to their feet in the pre-Broadway run of the new Maurice Hines-Heru Ptah-Maurice White dance musical, which opened April 30 at the Hilton Theatre to a decidedly less than enthusiastic review by New York Times critic Charles Isherwood.
She plays Emma, the part of a little girl to whom the plot of the production is introduced onstage. “Hot Feet,” which is loosely based on Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Red Shoes,” is adapted to the music of Maurice White’s Earth, Wind & Fire sensation of the 1970s, familiar to fans of the era for its rendition of “Fantasy.” Choreographer Hines, brother of the late Gregory Hines, brings incredible energy to the production.
As you may remember from the book and the classic 1948 movie starring Moira Shearer, the plot revolves around a ballerina who must choose between the man she loves and a tyrannical impresario who has sold his soul to the devil.
Once the dancer dons the red shoes, she is driven to dance. Emma is also offered the shoes, but she doesn’t need them. Neither does Samantha.
“She’s pretty driven,” said her mother, who shadows her every waking moment. So driven, in fact, that at an age when most girls like to go shopping with friends, Samantha has two agents and has modeled for Nike, Capezio, Mattel, and UFO; worked for the NBA 76rs Dance Team; played Chip in “Beauty and the Beast” and Zuzu in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and appeared in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade with the Sesame Street puppets.
“The puppets are so cute,” she said, “I liked Elmo.”
Samantha is also a straight-A student. Although her schedule dictates that she be tutored in her dressing room, she keeps up with the lessons that North Carroll Middle School sends her, apparently without breaking a sweat, just the way she handles her career.
A student at the State of the Art Dance Studio in Westminster and the Broadway Dance Center in New York, Samantha studied dance at the Oxford School for the Performing Arts in Oxford, Pennsylvania, between the ages of 7 and 11. She not only dances, but sings and plays the piano, and generally keeps her mother very, very busy.
In fact, Lisa Pollino had to quit her job as a travel agent in Westminster in order to shepherd her daughter through the fast-paced world of show business. Her father, Jeff, holds down his job as a corporate operations instructor for Papa John’s pizza chain, takes care of the family’s two dogs, a black Labrador named Casey and a German Shepherd named Chance, and visits whenever he can.
Samantha was back in her dressing room after the show. She was pumped – still jumping, still dancing, still waving her arms in the stylized movements of the performance: a combination of break dancing, hip-hop, ballet and the street style called “krunk.”
“When the music starts, I can’t stand still,” she said, hugging a teddy bear that someone had given her. The bear’s name? Emma. Samantha’s favorite food? Of course: mac n’ cheese. Her mother said she isn’t competitive at all. Just driven. Why does she dance?
“It’s what I love,” said Samantha. “Why do you live?”
Choreographer Maurice Hines stopped by to tell Samantha how well she had done onstage. She already knew. The applause for her had been deafening.
“She’s got that thing,” said Hines. “When you got it, you got it. And she’s got it.” -S.D.K.
