Born and raised in the heart of the Silicon Valley, Aaron J.
Albano found his love for performing like any other six year-
old Filipino kid: singing in church. At age 11, he found his
way into his first musical at Children’s Musical Theatre of San
Jose. It was Snow White. Aaron played the Woodsman.
After a few years performing at CMTSJ, Aaron tackled his first
professional production as a dancer in The Music Man,
produced by American Musical Theatre of San Jose. There,
he began to learn the world of professional musical theatre,
all the while also tackling his freshman year of high school at
San Jose’s magnet school for the performing arts – Abraham
Lincoln High School. In his four years at Lincoln, Aaron spent
his summers fine-tuning his craft, continuing his dance
training at Marie Stinnett Dance Studio, participating in Ann
Reinking’s prestigious Broadway Theatre Project in Tampa,
Florida, and dancing at EDGE Performing Arts Center in their
highly acclaimed “Dance with the Force” ensemble.
Considered one of the nation’s top musical theatre
conservatories, Aaron continued his studies at the University
of Cincinnati: College-Conservatory of Music, popularly
known as CCM, majoring in Musical Theatre. During his
summers, Aaron continued to “learn the ropes” as he
headed off to summer stock at such reputable theatres as
Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera and The Muny.
Upon leaving school, Aaron quickly jump started his career,
making his Broadway debut in the original cast of Andrew
Lloyd Webber’s Bombay Dreams. In it, he not only played the
little dancing Indian in the front, but also understudied the
lead role of Akaash – a challenging, but rewarding feat for
someone right out of the gate.
While dancing in water eight shows a week, Aaron began
auditioning for Wicked, first the Broadway company, and
then three months later for the national tour. After a total of
five months, four auditions, and about a gallon of sweat,
Aaron was offered to originate the token Asian track on the
1st National Tour of Wicked, with the additional offer to cover
Boq. He could be seen donning monkey wings and silver
make-up all across the country for almost a year, and within
that time, Aaron played the role of Boq over twenty times.
Aaron found his opportunity to leave the wonderful world of
Oz by moving to another part of the musical world...Putnam
County. While on tour, Aaron was offered the role of Chip
Tolentino in the San Francisco production of The 25th Annual
Putnam County Spelling Bee, in which he was able to return
to his home state of California for seven sunny months. He
received rave reviews as the irrepressibly pubescent Boy
Scout and continued to play the role of Chip for three months
in Boston; after a brief stint in Broadway's A Chorus Line,
Aaron then enjoyed a nine-month run in ...Spelling Bee on
BROADWAY, which he also had the pleasure of closing in
January 2008.
Aaron can now be seen performing with the Flying Nanny
eight shows a week at the New Amsterdam Theatre in the
Broadway company of Mary Poppins.