Ridgewood's Ali Stroker Leading Workshop For Aspiring Actors This Week

RIDGEWOOD, NJ — Broadway actress Ali Stroker believes that helping others and exposing young people to the power of the arts.

Although she is confined to a wheelchair, Stroker has been one to follow her dream of becoming a professional actress thanks to the encouragement of others. Now, she's doing the same.

Stroker Across The Bridge Arts, a non-profit Stroker and her friend, Alli Job founded, will host a theater workshop in Ridgewood for teenagers Friday and Saturday. They will host classes in acting, singing, auditioning, and how the business of professional acting works.

"What I'm really excited about is talking to young people and telling them that it is possible to make a living doing this," said Stroker, 29. "I created my own path by knocking on doors not knowing if they would open for me."

A car accident when she was 2 left Stroker paralyzed from the waist down. She saw her first Broadway play when she was 7 and knew then that she wanted to be an actor.

"My own personal experience provided such an outlet for me growing up because I needed one so desperately," Stroker said. "A huge part of it was it gave me an arena to participate and compete in. Sports was not in the cards so the arts became an incredible opportunity and to get really good at what I loved."

It wasn't long before Stroker appeared on a Broadway stage in the 2015 revival of "Spring Awakening." Before that, she appeared on "Glee," "The Glee Project," and earned rave reviews as Olive Ostrovsky in The Papermill Playhouse's production of "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee."

"It was a way to channel my joy and pain and it's been a great career for me," Stroker said. "It was a beautiful find for me. It was the right fit."

The workshop costs $200 to attend. It will be 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. There will be a panel discussion where Stroker and her colleagues will talk about their experiences.

Joseph Haro, from "Glee" and the Broadway production of "West Side Story," Dylan Moore, a producer on CBS's "Blue Bloods," will also be at the workshop.

"There is no right way to make a career as an actor," Stroker said. "A lot of young people are discouraged from becoming professional artists because there isn't a linear way of doing this. I just want to encourage them and show them it is possible."

Email: daniel.hubbard@patch.com

Photo: Ali Stroker — Courtesy of Sam Morris PR