Work in progress

Two summers ago, Central High School librarian Julia Jorgensen was visiting her daughter Maggie in New York City when she noticed a familiar- looking young man on the subway. He was telling a story and cracking up everyone in his vicinity. The same effervescent glint had been in his eye as a student at Central High School a decade ago.

"You're Neil Totton from Central High School," she said and told the passengers that she'd been a teacher of his in Cape Girardeau.

"He turned around and shrieked," Jorgensen said. "It was like a Broadway musical."

Getting a role in a Broadway musical happens to be Totton's mission these days. Nobody who knows him doubts he has the resolve, least of all himself. "When I have my eyes set on something I become very determined to make that happen," he said.

The first and only male dancer ever on the Central High School pompon squad, Totton moved to New York in 2002 to become a professional dancer. Since then he has danced with Ballet Black in London and in touring companies of Elton John's "Aida" and "The Wedding Singer."

But Totton struggled for a year and a half. He was on the "Showtime at the Apollo" TV show, but one-time shots don't pay the rent. He considered returning home to Cape Girardeau, but his mother, Annette, wouldn't allow it. "What are you going to come home and do?" he said she told him.

As Annette remembers the conversation, she told him he wouldn't be happy in Cape Girardeau if he really wanted a career as a dancer. "Besides," she said, "We're not going to be roommates."

Totton was shocked but stuck it out and eventually won a job dancing with the London classical ballet company Ballet Black for a year. In New York he has found rent-paying work fronting a prominent wedding band. His biggest break came in 2006 when he was chosen to be the dance captain for the national tour of Elton John's "Aida." More recently, he was dancing in the national tour of "The Wedding Singer" before a shoulder injury sidelined him.

Now he's focusing on grabbing a role on Broadway, specifically in "A Chorus Line."

"If you print that, I have to make it happen," he said in a phone interview from New York.

In some ways he's not the same Neil Totton who left Missouri. Raised a Christian, Totton now sits before a scroll called the Gohonzon and chants "Nam-myoho-renge-kyo" after awakening. That is the title of the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha's final teaching. Totton was attracted to Buddhism because of its belief in the principle of cause and effect. "It made me become a lot more aware of the choices I've made in my life," he said.

Being a performer consumes his life. Auditions can last hours. Meetings with his agent and dance and vocal lessons take up the rest of the day. Most of his friends are singers, dancers or musicians. "The way New York works is that your profession becomes your community," he said.

Totton has been performing much of his life. He performed in plays in elementary school, and as a freshman saw the pompon squad rehearsing in the gym, learned the routine and decided to audition.

Jorgensen said Totton endured a few tacky comments when he joined the dance team. "But because he was a better dancer than many of the girls or certainly their equal, he was accepted by the majority of the student body. They accepted him because that was who he was."

The experience was a positive one, he said. "If you're a young, skinny black boy in a town such as Cape Girardeau, it definitely puts a lot of attention on you as a person. Doing that helped me be more courageous in my life in general. If there was anything I wanted to do, I've always been courageous."

While in high school he played dance teacher Boris Kolenkhov in "You Can't Take It With You" and performed a tap-dancing solo in "Oklahoma."

"He was a very determined young man and worked very hard at it," said drama teacher and director Cynthia Bradshaw.

He was the class president all but his senior year and a member of Renaissance, a group Jorgensen founded to promote academic achievement and school participation. "He was charming, he was fun, he was euphoric," Jorgensen said.

Totton also was grounded, she said. "He never once thought he would go from Cape Central High School to the Broadway stage, for example."

Totton graduated from Central High School in 1998. He enrolled in then-Southwest Missouri State University in Springfield. In college he went through a Sisco phase, emulating the rap singer's blazing hair colors. "He was determined that was going to be his look," his mother said. "... Now he looks back and says, 'How come you all didn't tell me?'"

After attending a dance school in New York and going to the London Studio Center, a performing arts conservatory, he realized Missouri was not where he needed to be to get where he wanted to go so he left school. He came home for six months, worked at the Pasta House and saved his money.

Annette was ambivalent about him going to New York initially. She wanted him to finish college first. Though she often guides her children, "the ultimate decision will fall on their shoulders," she said.

Annette has seen her son perform three times in "Aida" but didn't see "The Wedding Singer" before he was injured. She was not quite prepared for his physical feats in "Aida."

"I was like, is that my kid up there?" she said.

Someday, Totton said, he might pursue a different career — like psychology. But he knows better than to try to wear too many hats at the same time.

"I really don't know anything else but performing," he said. "It's so natural to me."

He recently auditioned for Cirque du Soleil and for "A Chorus Line." He hasn't heard anything from Cirque du Soleil. Last weekend he was called back for a second audition for the role of Richie in "A Chorus Line."

Totton thinks his career is just beginning to blossom. "Just like anybody else's, it's a work in progress," he said.