Ava Baldassari
- Actress
Ava Baldassari is a student at the Chicago Academy for the Arts in Chicago, Illinois. One of the top performing arts high schools in the country, she is a musical theater major graduating in May 2023. She caught the acting bug at age six when cast in an ESPN TV commercial, and has been training and performing ever since, most recently co-starring on Chicago Fire.
Playing Glinda in her grade school's production of The Wizard of Oz in 2017 cemented her love of musical theater. Since then, she has appeared in A Chorus Line (Judy Turner), Aladdin (Jasmine), Beauty and the Beast, Head Over Heels, Into the Woods, Pirates of Penzance, and West Side Story. Her love of dance is evidenced by 10 years of studio work, four years as an ensemble member in the Nutcracker with Ballet Chicago, and solo and team performances as a competitive dancer with Definition Dance Academy. She has modeled for Claire's, Icing, and Meijer.
Off stage, Ava has championed the issues of gender equality and equal education. In 2010 she wrote and recorded a song that helped send girls to school in Kenya, and in 2017 she and six classmates organized the Children's March for the Future, the first youth-run rally held in Chicago, for which she served as media spokesperson. Ava is writing a children's book about a bookmark that gets lost in a library. When finished, she hopes to use it as a vehicle to raise awareness for dyslexia, which she was diagnosed with in 3rd grade.
Playing Glinda in her grade school's production of The Wizard of Oz in 2017 cemented her love of musical theater. Since then, she has appeared in A Chorus Line (Judy Turner), Aladdin (Jasmine), Beauty and the Beast, Head Over Heels, Into the Woods, Pirates of Penzance, and West Side Story. Her love of dance is evidenced by 10 years of studio work, four years as an ensemble member in the Nutcracker with Ballet Chicago, and solo and team performances as a competitive dancer with Definition Dance Academy. She has modeled for Claire's, Icing, and Meijer.
Off stage, Ava has championed the issues of gender equality and equal education. In 2010 she wrote and recorded a song that helped send girls to school in Kenya, and in 2017 she and six classmates organized the Children's March for the Future, the first youth-run rally held in Chicago, for which she served as media spokesperson. Ava is writing a children's book about a bookmark that gets lost in a library. When finished, she hopes to use it as a vehicle to raise awareness for dyslexia, which she was diagnosed with in 3rd grade.