Former Joffrey Ballet dancer turns to 'Dirty Dancing'
In the middle of her fifth season of dancing with the Joffrey Ballet in Chicago, Jenny Winton was offered an audition out of the blue for the national tour of "Dirty Dancing - The Classic Story on Stage." And though the San Francisco native had trained all of her life for a ballet career, the thought of switching over to musical theater intrigued her.
"I thought, why not? I had always wanted to do acting and this kind of seemed like a great opportunity," said Winton, who now plays the troubled dancer Penny Johnson in "Dirty Dancing." The stage adaptation of the hit 1987 film returns to Chicago's Cadillac Palace Theatre for a two-week run starting Tuesday, Aug. 18.
Winton previously performed with Pennsylvania Ballet II in 2008 before joining the Joffrey the following year. But it was actually Joffrey artistic director Ashley Wheater who encouraged Winton to give the tour a try, even though it meant leaving the company.
"(Wheater) was very supportive and very happy for me. He said this is a great opportunity, and it will open many doors for you," Winton said. "Artists understand that when opportunities come, they have to take them. You can't choose when they come along, and you have to go with it."
Winton has previously toured a lot with the Joffrey, but she had a learning curve adjusting to a national tour that plays eight shows a week as it crisscrosses the country. Winton started taking vocal lessons while also keeping up her ballet form and technique.
"Growing up in ballet, my body can pretty much take on anything because it is so hard to do," Winton said, proudly saying that she did the first year of her "Dirty Dancing" contract without missing a performance. "It's not as technically grueling as ballet, but on top of it I'm also carrying the show as a character and acting."
"Dirty Dancing" is set in the 1960s and mostly focuses on a young woman nicknamed "Baby" (Gillian Abbott) who falls for a dancer named Johnny (Christopher Tierney) while on vacation with her family at a New York Catskills resort. Winton's part is the controversial one: Her character becomes seriously ill after a botched abortion when the procedure was still illegal in the U.S.
"Women didn't have as many rights as they do today, but it's still a relevant issue," said Winton. "It's important for me to be able to portray the situation and the predicament and the struggles that some women go through."
While she's back in Chicago, Winton plans to take ballet classes with her former Joffrey colleagues and to introduce her new touring colleagues to them.
"They were my family for five years," Winton said about Joffrey Ballet. "Some of my best friends I've ever made are still dancing with them."
“Dirty Dancing”
Location: Cadillac Palace Theatre, 151 W. Randolph St., Chicago, (800) 745-3000 or
Showtimes: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday (also Sunday, Aug. 23), 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday (also Wednesday, Aug. 26); runs Aug. 18 through Aug. 30.
Tickets: $15-$82