Meet the Physical Therapist That Keeps MJ The Musical Dancing

Broadway dancers make their work look effortless, but it takes a village to keep a performer healthy enough to get on stage eight times a week. MJ The Musical—featuring Christipher Wheeldon’s Tony-winning interpretations of Michael Jackson’s iconic dance moves—is one of the most exhilarating Broadway jobs a dancer could land. But that also means it’s one of the most strenuous.

Enter Zoe Tawa, resident physical therapist at MJ The Musical. It’s a niche role in the theater industry, and The Broadway Show’s Perry Sook had the chance to learn about Tawa’s unique path to Broadway on a visit to her small corner of the Neil Simon Theatre. “I thought I wanted to go to med school—and I majored in dance in college and broke my foot dancing,” Tawa explains. “I went to a great dance medicine PT and from that moment on I was like, ‘This is it. I am going to work with dancers and I'm going to be a physical therapist.’”

She’s made that aspiration a reality, working on a number of Broadway shows and bringing her own life experience to each one. “I feel like I can relate to these people. I totally understand what they're going through and the demands that it takes to be able to do this show a million times,” she tells Sook, exuding genuine admiration for her clientele. “I think that that's really an amazing thing.”