ABOUT

Maria Paula Gonzalez is a Venezuelan Choreographer, Director, Performer, Dancer, and Writer based in Boston, Miami, and New York City. She is a Music Business Major with an emphasis in marketing at Berklee College of Music. At Berklee, she is the student manager of Berklee Theater Arts Collaborative, working to market theater shows and creating digital advertising content for teachers and students. In this position, she has assisted in organizing several fundraising events that encourage the merger between Berklee and Boston Conservatory theater programs. She has also participated intermediately in the program both choreographing and performing in shows at the Berklee Performance Center, such as West Side Story (Maria), In the Heights (Yolanda, Dance Captain), and more.

 

Born in Miami, Maria began her musical theater career as a small child at The Doral Conservatory of the Arts, where she performed many musical theater shows from the time that she was five years old.  The Doral Conservatory allowed her to be in many junior productions, as well as a Spanish play by Alejandro Casona (Los Arboles Mueren de Pie). She also took private vocal instruction and private guitar instruction at the Doral Conservatory. Maria then attended New World School of the Arts in Miami with a focus on Musical Theater. This rigorous conservatory style musical theater program only has an 11% acceptance rate and focuses on providing college level training to high school students. At New World, she regularly took dance classes for four years, training in Broadway Jazz and Ballet. Besides dance, she continued her private voice studies as well as training in different acting methods such as Uta Hagen, Stanislavski, Michael Chekhov, Shakespeare, Acting for the Camera, and more. Besides training in performance, Maria regularly organized events such as the Hispanic Heritage Show for two years in a row, she directed and stage managed shows (The Pillowman by Martin Mcdonagh, New World School of the Arts Playrights Festival), as well as being a part of the Tech crew for several New World theater productions. She also performed at Frenchwoods Camp in New York and many other venues, recordings and commercials.

 

Her performance credits include Dora the Explorer the Movie (Naya), In the Heights (Yolanda), Gruesome Playground Injuries (Kayleen), Sister Act (Sister Mary Robert), Viva Broadway (Directed by Andy Señor Jr.), West Side Story (Maria), 1984 – an original musical reading (Marigold). She has performed at the Berklee Performance Center Ella Fitzgerald Tribute as a feature dancer and assistant choreographer. Maria also was a part of MISO Chic, a multimedia charity event that took place in Miami, Fl, where she sang with the Miami Symphony Orchestra at the Adrienne Archst Center. Administratively, she runs Berklee Theater Arts Collaborative, manages her band Bloom, and has been a production assistant on On Your Feet! Broadway Tour and Revolution Rent the movie, to premiere in Miami in 2018. Maria has also Assistant Directed, Fundraised, and music supervised an independent movie named Daybreak to be submitted to the SunDance Film Festival in 2018.