Photos courtesy of Damani Van Rensalier

By Steve Sears

For many, it is a dream role: to be on stage as a member of the cast of Hamilton.

Therefore, welcome to Damani Van Rensalier’s wonderful life. The 2015 Passaic County Technical Institute graduate has been since last summer an ensemble member, playing the role of “The Bullet” for the Angelica Touring Company cast.

“When I graduated from Mason Gross School of the Arts in 2019, that summer I joined an agency, so I had an agent,” Van Rensalier says. “She basically just sent me on a bunch of auditions because I was new, I was fresh out of school. Every day of every week, I was auditioning two to four times a week, and Hamilton was one of them. I would go in and do a big group call.”

Broadway and all other theaters were shut down from spring 2020 to the summer of 2021, and when they started reopening, auditions were not yet being held in person, so the Hamilton producers referred to a roster of people who had already auditioned. 

Van Rensalier’s number was called.

“Emotional,” Van Rensalier says when she got the call. “I was very emotional for many reasons, but mainly because we had seen theater kind of just get pushed under the rug. Institutions started opening as early as the end of 2020, but theater was still put on hold for a year. So, it was emotional because I was excited to do what I love again, it had been so long. But this show – it’s a historic piece. It’s about things that have actually happened in history, but it has its amazing way of not only blending black culture into it – which is something that I really enjoy being part of, with the hip hop background and the jazz background – but also just telling a story that in a way that can be relatable to everyone. And I still continue to see that as I perform in eight shows a week.” 

Prior to her role in Hamilton, another part came calling. With Hadestown, Van Rensalier joined a Tony Award-winning cast which also performed in the 93rd Annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. “A very small cast, a very legendary cast,” she says. “I was there when they needed me basically, which became very often at some point. So having that, I was able to perform with them at the Thanksgiving Day Parade, which was an amazing experience and a very cold, freezing day. But it was all worth it, from the 5 a.m. call up through the performance.”

Van Rensalier, 25, attended Rutgers University and the Mason Gross School of the Arts. “I wanted to be closer to home,” she says of her college choice. “I also wanted to be close to the city, because I knew that I wanted to pursue a career in the city after I graduated. But the program within the university was something that I was looking for. It was a conservatory style program that would allow me to work on dance every single day inside of the university, and that let me do the football games and do the extracurriculars as well. It was a nice balance of both.”

Van Rensalier also gives back to the city of Paterson, where she grew up. Always a person who wanted to provide an arts event for her city, she acted during the pandemic. She and two other 2013 PCTI grads, Nyasia Fraser and Diana Julcapoma, formed an alliance and held an arts festival at the Great Falls National Historic Site. “We had so many people come out, it was beyond what we could have imagined,” Van Rensalier says. “We were like, ‘We can’t stop here!’ So, we formed a nonprofit (“Fall Into Art”) based off of that festival. From there, we did some community giveaways, community cleanups, and we’ve done two festivals. Now we’re gearing up for our third one this year. It’s something that I’ve always wanted to do, and now that I had the time to and more of the drive to do it, I was able to get it done, and it’s something that just brings me so much joy and happiness.”

For her future, Van Rensalier would like to be part of an original Broadway production. “I definitely want to be a part of an original Broadway cast. That’s a huge deal to me. I’ve joined the casts that have already been established, but I’d love to build a musical from the bottom with the creative team, and be a part of that original cast.” Television and film are other avenues she’d like to experience. “I’ve been on a show as a background dancer, but I would love to get into acting and more into film.”

For more information about Damani Van Rensalier, visit her website at www.damanivanrensalier.com. Additional information about “Fall Into Art” can be found at www.fallintoartnj.org.