Francesca CamusFrancesca is currently playing the role of URSULA in The Little Mermaid at the Henderson Pavillion. In December 2015 she was acknowledged as PN Las Vegas Personality and Performer of the year. Her debut album “By My Standards” was also awarded Best Vocal Jazz album of December 2015 through Akademia. Currently, Francesca teaches adults and children of all ages specializing in performance and audition technique with students from Las Vegas to San Francisco. Francesca earned her Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance at Notre Dame de Namur University in 2006, under the direction of Lee Strawn, Debra Lambert and Marcelle Dronkers. She also pursued a Master of Music in Jazz Pedagogy and Performance, studying under Marcelle Dronkers for classical training, and with Wesla Whitfield and Mike Greensill for jazz. Halfway through her masters program, she felt called to put her studies aside. She decided to push her way through auditions and pursue a performing career. After packing up her things and making the brave move to Las Vegas, Francesca was working as a singer within her first three months in her new city. Francesca became a world traveler embarked with luxury cruise line, Silversea, aboard its Silver Spirit ocean liner in September 2011, bound for Rome. She spent her days exploring the different countries along the Mediterranean Sea. She then crossed the Atlantic to the Caribbean, visiting the coasts of Central and South America, then sailed deep into the Pacific Ocean to French Polynesia and finally back to the West Coast. Then later embarked on the Silver Shadow. This brought Francesca to Siberia, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and back! Aboard the Silver Spirit & Silver Shadow, she spent her evenings performing a variety of shows from Motown, Pop to Opera — and everything in between. in 2013 in Alaska. Other performance credits include “Broadway Bares 2012” (at the Peepshow CHI theater), “Leading Ladies of Music” (Ovation Lounge), and the grand opening of The Smith Center for the Performing Arts in Las Vegas, singing backup for Jennifer Hudson. She has played the role of Joanne Jefferson in Jonathan Larson’s Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning musical Rent, Fairy Godmother in Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella, Brenda in Smokey Joe’s Cafe, the Acid Queen in “The Who’s Tommy,” Woman No. 1 in Side by Side by Sondheim. Other musical-theater and operatic credits include Mama Noah in Children of Eden, Public Opinion in Orpheus in the Underworld, in addition to roles in Miss Saigon, “Follies in Concert,” The Magic Flute and La Boheme. Francesca worked for years as one of the Italian-opera singers who appeared in the Streetmosphere shows at the The Venetian Hotel Casino Resort and its sister property, The Palazzo Resort Hotel Casino. She has also performed around town with various bands and made appearances at Mandarin Oriental Las Vegas, Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino, Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino, Caesars Palace, Tropicana Resort, Green Valley Ranch Resort Spa & Casino, Boulder Station Hotel & Casino, Fremont Street Experience and other local venues.
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