Before Broadway audiences saw her in Chess, Regine Sophia was already carrying principal dance work across some of the country’s most demanding stages. There are dancers who look at home in one kind of production, then there are dancers who can walk into entirely different theatrical worlds and s till command the room. Regine Sophia belongs to the second category. That is one reason her recent work has started to stand out in a bigger way. Long before audiences at the Imperial Theatre saw her in Chess The Musical, she had already been trusted with principal tracks in major houses that demand stamina, control, and real stage authority. She played Kylar in Bring It On! at The Muny and Portia in Something Rotten! at Music Theatre Wichita, two credits that say a lot about the kind of dancer she is becoming. Those roles matter because they ask for different instincts. They test different muscles. They place a dancer inside very different performance environments. Yet Regine Sophia moved through both. “I love work that asks something specific of me,” she says. “I do not want every room to feel the same. I want to keep stretching into what each production needs.” At The Muny, that meant performing in one of the best-known regional theaters in the country, in a venue that seats around 11,000 people. A stage that large changes everything. Energy has to travel. Movement has to land clearly. Presence has to read from a distance without becoming broad or careless. “You feel the size of that house immediately,” she says. “It teaches you to commit fully. Half-choices disappear.” At Music Theatre Wichita, the challenge took a different form. There, as Portia in Something Rotten!, she worked at a company known for mounting high-level productions for audiences who know exactly what strong musical theatre work looks like. The demands were still intense, but the rhythm was different. Timing, responsiveness, and character work had to stay sharp night after night. “Every production reveals something new about you,” she says. “You find out what you can really hold when the expectations are high.” She honed her talent in a variety of roles including, Patsy in Crazy for You, Buttons in Newsies, Dream Sherrie in Rock of Ages, and Kathy in 9 to 5. That may be the clearest through-line in her story so far. Regine Sophia has built her career by proving she can hold a lot. She has trained across hip hop, jazz, musical theatre dance, ballet, and modern-contemporary work. She has taken on leadership responsibilities. She has competed. She has adapted. She has kept adding to her range instead of narrowing it. Now that range is visible on Broadway. Regine Sophia is part of Chess The Musical at the Imperial Theatre, a production that came with a long audition process stretching across several months and drawing more than a thousand dancers. Only four were selected. She was one of them. She is also one of only two people in the cast making a Broadway debut. Still, she does not see the production like it is the first real chapter in her career. She talks about it like the next demand in a line of increasingly demanding work. “Broadway is a huge honor,” she says. “But I also see it as a responsibility. You have to show up ready to contribute at a very high level.” That readiness did not come out of nowhere. Regine Sophia began training at five, starting in hip hop and ballet before expanding into modern, jazz, and contemporary dance. Over time, her abilities grew across flexibility, artistry, and technique, giving her the base to move fluidly between styles rather than staying confined to one mode of movement. Her earlier experience in the Philippines helped shape that versatility. She served as dance captain of the METTA Dance Troupe, leading the group to a silver finish at the Philippine National Dance Championships. She also performed as an opening act for Ballet Philippines during its Romeo and Juliet run, placed as first runner-up in the Philippine National Dance Championships, and received an honorable mention at the Philippine Dance Cup. She speaks about that chapter less as a collection of accolades and more as a period that taught her how to work with purpose. “Being responsible for more than your own track changes you,” she says. “It teaches you to think about the full picture and not only your own part in it.” That mindset still informs how she moves through productions. Regine Sophia describes herself as someone who has often stepped into organizational and problem-solving responsibilities, whether that meant relaying key information, overseeing proposals, helping structure logistics, or resolving group issues as they arose. In other words, she has not limited leadership to what happens in front of an audience. “I care a lot about the whole process,” she says. “A strong result usually starts with how people prepare, communicate, and take care of the work behind the scenes.” Recognition has followed. From 2023 through 2025, she earned five individual scholarships and awards tied to performing arts and dance achievement: the June H. Ford Memorial Award for Musical Theatre Dance Performance, the Reuben Gladys Golumbic Scholarship for Performance Achievement, the Fainor Family Award for the Arts in Musical Theatre, the Robert E. Leonard Award, and the Sue Carson Award. She is proud of those honors, but she does not frame them as the point. “They mean a lot to me because they reflect years of commitment,” she says. “At the same time, they make me want to keep building. I do not see them as an ending.” That forward motion shows up in how she talks about the future. She wants to continue dancing on Broadway and on stages across the country. She wants national and international tours. She wants her abilities to keep deepening over the course of a long career. She also wants to expand into choreography and teaching, which she sees as an extension of the same creative life rather than a separate path. “I want to keep telling stories through dance for a long time,” she says. “I also want to keep learning, then pass that knowledge on.” For now, what makes Regine Sophia compelling is not just one production or one credit. It is the shape of the body of work itself. Principal roles. Broadway. Awards. Leadership. Range across multiple styles. Each piece adds to the same picture. She is building a career that can handle scale, carry responsibility, and keep evolving as the rooms get bigger. For more information on Regine Sophia, visit her website. The post As the Youngest Lead Dancer in Chess, Regine Sophia Commands the Spotlight appeared first on LA Weekly. ...read more read less