Joshua Bergasse

Joshua Alexandre Bergasse, born March 6, 1973, in Farmington Hills, Michigan, is an American choreographer and dancer whose career spans Broadway performance, Broadway and Off-Broadway choreography, and television work. He began his training at his mother's dance studio, where he later taught, and has cited Bob Fosse, Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Hermes Pan, and Michael Kidd as influences on his work.

Bergasse's performing career began when, at age 22, he auditioned for the national tour of West Side Story while visiting New York City on vacation. He was cast as Baby John and remained with the tour for two years before settling in New York to continue working as a dancer. His Broadway performance credits, spanning 1995 to 2004, include Movin' Out, Hairspray, West Side Story, and The Life Line.

His transition into choreography gained significant momentum in 2012, when director Michael Mayer, having seen Bergasse's work at a New York University benefit, hired him as choreographer for the television series Smash. Bergasse served in that role across the show's two-season run, during the second season of which he choreographed for both the fictional musicals Bombshell and Hit List. His work on Smash earned him a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Choreography in 2012.

Bergasse made his mark as a Broadway choreographer with the 2014 revival of On the Town, for which he received both an Astaire Award and his first Tony Award nomination for Best Choreography. The following year he choreographed the Broadway revival of Gigi. His Off-Broadway credits include Sweet Charity, Captain Louie, and Cagney, the last of which earned him a Drama Desk nomination, an Astaire Award nomination, and an Outer Critics Circle Award nomination. Additional choreographic work includes West Side Story at the Stratford Festival, Little Me and It's a Bird... It's a Plane... It's Superman at City Center Encores!, Pirates of Penzance at Barrington Stage Company, and productions of Guys and Dolls and The Sound of Music at Carnegie Hall. In 2017, Bergasse choreographed the Broadway production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

In 2019, Bergasse both directed and choreographed a revival of the Rodgers and Hart musical I Married an Angel for the New York City Encores! series, a production that starred his then-wife, Sara Mearns. Bergasse and Mearns had met in November 2012 when she auditioned for a featured dancing role on Smash, became engaged on Valentine's Day after five years together, and married on November 3, 2018, in Sunset Beach, North Carolina. They divorced in 2024.

Bergasse received his second Tony Award nomination for Best Choreography in 2025 for the Broadway premiere of the musical Smash, a stage adaptation of the television series for which he had originally served as choreographer more than a decade earlier.