Dina Emerson

“Theatre is even more valuable in today’s 21st-century environment, saturated as it is with ‘screen time’ and individual entertainment on demand.  It is a shared experience which feeds an essential part of the human psyche.  Theatre is unique in bringing performer and audience together in real time, in the same space, helping us understand our world and ourselves better.”  – Dina Emerson

Dina is a 4th-generation West Coast native, born and raised in Santa Barbara, CA. With a vaudevillian acrobat for a grandfather and a grandmother who taught speech and drama, Dina’s passion for theater began very early in life. Her love of live performance was cemented each and every summer during her childhood with annual visits to see Shakespeare brought to life in Solvang, California’s wonderful outdoor amphitheater.  After attending UC Berkeley and Bennington College, Dina graduated in 1988 with a BA in Drama and spent 13 years in NYC, working steadily as a performer in plays, operas, concerts, singing with the occasional rock band, as well as appearing on any number of music CDs.  She had expected to be an actor, but music took over instead.  And no one was more surprised than her when singing became her profession. In 2000, Dina was cast as a 6-month replacement for the lead vocalist in Cirque du Soleil’s “O”, the water-spectacular at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. This led to another singing position with Cirque, just down the strip at “Mystère” where she has been in permanent residence since 2007. Her years in Vegas have given her a vast appreciation for the immense reservoir of talented artists and performers who live and work there and Dina is thrilled for the opportunity to help A Public Fit Theater Company fulfill their mission of bringing professional-level theater to the Las Vegas Community.